I Bet
by kygirl101
Summary: They didn't tell me that you...that you..." "That I killed a whore?" AU KyouKao!angst ficlet. Thrown into the pits of poverty and desperation, Kaoru turned to the only option he has. Kyouya turns to the only love he can afford. Full Sum. inside.
1. Prolouge

_As promised, full summary:_

_Throw into a world of poverty and desperation, Kaoru turns to his only option. Jerked from his position of power, Kyouya turns to the only love he can offord. When things start getting messy, how will this effect the two of them and the world around them. And when the events take a horrible turn, what will the end result be? Life...or death. KyouKao, TamaHaru, minor HikaKao. Rating might go up. WARNING: Yaoi, rape, non-con, prostitution, murder, character death. Read at own risk!!_

**Intro--Now Revised!!**

It was rather cold. Weather that be because of the broken air conditioner or the general feel of the place was left up to anyone to guess at. It was chilly either way, and not the frozen type of chilly that children look out side, praying for it to rain or rather, snow. It was the damp kind, the kind of frozen that froze your cloths first, so they sapped all the warmth out of your blood stream, leaving you glued to whatever surface you fell on like some strange, painted statue. In all honesty, horrid conditions for any human to live in.

It was a rattling at first. The sound of jangling keys turning in the lock, that alerted the man in the hard backed chair to the woman—the lawyer's presence. She stepped inside, face passive and blank. The perfect poker face and one that the man had seen many times before. Quietly, she sits down opposite him, briefcase off to the side and hands folded neatly in her lap. It is quiet…

"Haven't seen you since high school," the man's voice is cool and even, quite composed considering the surroundings. "How have you been, Haruhi?"

The woman's lips tightened. During her working hours, she preferred to be referred to as 'Ms. Fujioka'. She only ever allowed her friends and fiancée to call her by her first name, and Ootori Kyouya was neither one of those…anymore.

She shuffled slightly, reaching into her stationary case for a thick file and a tape recorder. She placed the electronic device on the table, clicking the recording button and opening the manila folder. What she saw shocked her, so much so that the brunette found herself looking up from the neatly typed paragraphs and gazed into his deep grey eyes.

A raised eye brow and a clipped, "They didn't tell you?"

A shocked shake of the head. "You—you didn't…"

"What does the file tell you?"

Her first case and it was already getting to her. "Kyouya...it says that you..." she gulped and started again, "You were brought in for..."

"Suspisious questioning," he ended for her. "I'm here by choice, Haruhi, so I ask you not to jump to any conclusions about me, nor judge the fact that I am here as intierly connected to this case."

"...You know, Kyouya..." Haruhi said, extracting a small portfolio of laminated pictures and handing them quietly to the man across from her, "I never would have pegged you as that kind of person." A quirk of an eyebrow that caused the man's glasses to slip farther down his nose. "No," Haruhi hurridly corrected herself, "I only meant...I never would have thought you would be the kind of person who risked getting your reputation ruined because of someone else. Let alone someone who..."

A glint of the electrical lamp over head danced off the older man's glasses, causing the lawyer across from him to freeze. Silently, she cured the old habit and forced her body to relax. A small cough. A slight bob of the head as each new picture attracted his undivided attention. The sound of a telephone ringing and the rustle of paper from behind the closed door.

"I'm not..." Kyouya replied softly, makeing his tone land in the happy medium between threatening and light-'n-airy. "I think, seeing as I have done nothing wrong, that this will only improve my image and depleat yours. Can you imagin what the papers will dig up when they find out your cop friends knocked down my door, arrested me, let me go and then formally requested my presense at this run down station, _just _because I am of a higher class?"

"That's not--" Haruhi started, only to be cut off by a low chuckle.

"I know that's not why I'm here," Kyouya said, his tone indifferent, "But that is how every news anchorman and every magazine will see it."

"And you wouldn't bother in setting them straight?"

"There are no merits in helping this department." The commoner knew that was code word for, "I will do nothing to enrich this department's opportunities, seeing as how it has inconveinenced me." She shuddered. It was like being back in highschool, where she had broken a vase that was supposedly worth alot of money in the function that the youngest Ootori had set up; she had constantly feared him, his power, the ability he had to ruin her life, but that had all changed now...well, accept the power.

"If you could have highered the best laywer in the entier country," Haruhi said stiffly, choosing her words carefully so as to not cause unwanted friction between the two of them, "Why me?"

Silence. "Because, you, Haruhi, could beleive whatever you like--you could beleive I killed the whore, or that I didn't--but you'll treat me accordingly if that's the truth. And, Haruhi, you might very well be the only lawyer in Japan who would do this because it's what's right, and not because of what I'm paying you."

One breath. Two breaths. Three breaths. Did Ootori Kyouya--the former Shadow King--just...compliment her? Or threaten her life if she didn't approance the case right?

"Okay," the woman said, neatly organizing all her papers before looking back into the onxy eyes of her old school mate. "Are you, or are you not, guilty for killing the prostitute downstairs?"

A twist of facial features that could have been anything froma grimace to a smirk. "Define guilty."

**A/N: OKay, so wha'd ya think? Should I continue? If I do, I promise the quiality will improve; I was just kinda at a lose for what to say. MWAHAHAHAHAHA**

**You all know what I'm asking for. Be kind; review!!**


	2. Chapter One

Chapter One

Three Months Ago

Two shadowy figures sat in the upstairs bedroom of small house, situated in the slums of downtown. One was sitting, cross legged, on a lumpy queen-sized, the other standing before the small, gated window. The ladder of the two had his head pressed against the frosted window, breathing shallowly and allowing his breath to ghost over the glass. If one were to look at him now, the only sign of life would be the gentle rise and fall of his chest. His brother was just as stationary.

Then, the atmosphere changed with the younger of the two's body change. He straightened, sitting up with his legs drawn up to his chest and chin resting on his legs. His movement caused his brother to turn his head, so that his cheek and bright red hair stuck to the glass and his eyes were glued to the other.

"Kaoru…" he trailed off, knowing that his brother was about to voice the thing he'd been mentally developing for three hours.

"Hikaru," his twin confirmed. There was silence.

Sighing, Hikaru separated himself completely from the south wall and crossed to sit across from his brother, back against the thin wall. He crossed his legs as well.

Silence. "Kaoru…?"

"Hikaru, we have to do something…" the younger of the Hitachiin twins cried softly, "We can't continue like this!! I mean, mother is too busy working the late shifts for minimum pay and father…"

"Father is a struggling alcoholic," Hikaru finished for his brother, fiddling with a hole in the sole of the shoe. Neither of the two boys wanted to continue, but the atmosphere called for it. "What are you thinking of, Kaoru?"

"We don't…have much of a choice," the red head sighed. He held up a finger, "We could steal," he added another finger. "We could deal," he was referring to drugs as he raised a third finger for the next possible idea. "We could earn a decent living—"

"—like mother does?—"

Hikaru's comment was generally ignored. Kaoru added a fourth and final finger, but remained silent. No verbal communication was needed. The red head with his back pressed to the wall shook his head, allowing the rough texture rub his scalp through his hair.

"No." Was all he said.

But, as mentioned before, there wasn't much of a choice.

**A/N: Okay, I think this is alot better than the first one. I shall try to update in the next few...hours (?) because it's so short. Either way, you readers know what I'm asking for.**

**See that little bar at the bottom left hand corner of the screen? Click it!! _PLEASE!!_**


	3. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Like any other alleyway, this one was made to blend in. A few garbage cans lined the brick walls on either side with a few sewer rats running in and out of inconspicuous cracks. One could hear the shouts floating through the back door of a bar, all obscene jokes and drunken humor. The smell was unbearable; too much so to go into any detail about it, other than to say it was probably the main reason for the retching sounds coming out of aforementioned bar.

Kaoru shuddered. "This place is giving me the creeps, Hikaru," he murmured quietly. The red head clutched for his brother's hand, and the elder of the two slipped their interlocked fingers into the battered pocket of is coat. "Are you sure this is where we're supposed to go?"

Silence, broken by the ragged breathing that furled up into the dark sky in a white cloud. Hikaru nodded, pulling out a slip of paper given to him earlier that day in the park, and handed it to his brother.

"Yeah; she said that this was the most likely place to have both things," he whispered, side stepping a pile of oily water that was in the process of freezing.

Kaoru sighed again, causing Hikaru to look over at him.

"You want to go home?" the elder asked seriously, stopping mid-step. "I'm serious Kaoru. Do you want to go home?"

Amber eyes directed at his brother's feet and a casual shrug. "No…" he whispered. "No, I don't."

He didn't buy it. Yet, he didn't have a choice. What was that old saying again? Oh yeah; Desperate times call for desperate measures. Hikaru would have gladly had the both of them turn tail and run back to the dark confines of their shared room, but something deep inside of him knew that wasn't an option. For either of them. So, with the dignity and determination of men far older than themselves, the red headed twin dragged his brother behind an overflowing garbage can and knocked on a hidden door that was so far set in the wall, one could only assume that it lead under ground.

Now, this place was entirely different than that of the alley outside; there is one hallway that leads to their left and to another door way. All along the dark, underground hallway, the twins could feel the deep vibration of music that originated behind aforementioned door.

Hikaru felt Kaoru's hand twitch and withdraw from the inside of his pocket, and fought the urge to snatch the limb back. Somehow, letting go felt like selling his soul and, it kind of was. However, seeing his mirror image put on a strong and oddly forced smile, and longing to be the same, Hikaru followed Kaoru's lead, and walked towards the door.

-

--

-

Haruhi made a small note on the fresh legal pad in front of her. Distastefully, she noticed the tip of her pencil snap off and reached for the cheap sharpener. Her face remained composed and impassive as she felt the cold eyes of the Ootori in front of her fixate on her actions.

"Are you going to tell me more about your relationship with the Hitachiin boy, or simply dabble in old stories about him; it's a well known fact that he was a prostitute and that the man he worked for had a vicious initiation process, so if you intend to waste my time by retelling his rape and assault, than—"

"If you were paying closer attention, _Haruhi_," Kyouya said coolly, emphasizing her name so as to make the sentence more personal, "I was telling you about how that poor boy wound up on that slab downstairs; his death is directly linked to his part in the prostitution ring."

Haruhi sourly thought that, perhaps if the Hitachiin had never been initiated into the underground ring of drug cartel and the sale of bodies, he would have never met the Ootori, thus never…

"Fine," she said calmly, pretending as if she didn't care. "Continue, then."

--

--

--

Kaoru felt his back hit the stone wall harshly, his arms flying up and hitting the cold cement along with his head. Stars danced before his eyes and the picture before vision fuzzed slightly. Somewhere in the distance, he heard someone yell, sounding close yet muffled. Then, someone was on him, pressing his frame against the wall and crushing all the air from his lungs, forcing the redhead to inhale a large amount of cigarette smoke and the fumes of alcohol. He choked and was glad when the body was pushed off him.

His vision corrected itself in time for the red head to see his brother being torn off the large sweaty man who smelled of whiskey, and arm around his throat and what appeared to be a knife grazing over the sensitive underside of his chin. Hikaru struggled and a small dribble of blood appeared, running down his neck and the knife's blade together.

"No!! Leave him alone!!" The younger demanded, starting forward, only to be cut off by three grown men in his pathway. Like a cornered animal, the Hitachiin backed away, eyes strained to make out his twin's form, barely seen between the burley men's arms.

"Why should we?" One drunkenly slurred, running a clumsy hand up Kaoru's arm and toying with the torn fabric of his tee-shirt. A loose smile played on the older man's mouth as he leaned forward to place a sloppy kiss on Kaoru's cheek, missing and getting his ear. "You're so pretty and you two are twins. Why should we leave either of you alone?"

"Because…" Kaoru shuddered as he rubbed the saliva off the shell of his ear. "Because…because…" No words came.

The one man who seemed sober in the group pushed his companion out of the way and took his place against the younger's frame. "How old are you, boy?" he asked. Behind him, a girl clad only in a swimming top and a miniskirt delivered a message that was on a single piece of paper. The sober man read the message and a primitive smile curved his lips.

"I—I'm eighteen," the sixteen year old lied, breath coming in short gasps. He tried to keep his pride from deserting him and defiantly added. "Why should that matter? Isn't it the younger ones that the people pay more money to fuck?"

A low chuckle rumbled through the crowd; they seemed to enjoy his joke.

"Spirit," another intoxicated man said brightly, taking another swig of his beverage. "I like it in him."

The sober man—Kaoru guessed he was the one in charge—pocketed the paper and suddenly fisted a hand in the boy's red hair. The redhead emitted a small squeak of pain and grinding his teeth and barely noticing the small tears that sprung to his eyes. Off to the side, he heard Hikaru shout for them to stop, although using a wider vocabulary of swear words.

"The boss says he likes you; you've got good looks and I'd say you've got a way with the words. But, no, it's not only the young ones that out customers like to fuck; it's the experienced one's that they like. So, virgin, we're going to…hehe…_break_ you in."

It took three fourths of a second for what the man has said to register in Kaoru's brain, and another three for him to find himself on his knees, having a thumb slipped into his mouth and forcing his jaw open.

"No!! Leave him alone, you shit bag!! I will fucking kill you; I swear to god if you so much as touch my brother again, I will slit your throat." For all his talk, Hikaru was helpless to rescue his brother. This fact seemed to register with him, for he only flailed harder, successfully elbowing the larger man that held him in the stomach.

"Come on," cooed the man above Kaoru, working his thumb a little deeper into the red head's throat, despite it's natural reflex to close. The younger boy gagged repeatedly, almost on the verge of throwing up, but this only seemed to please the man more. "Open up, virgin, or I'll break your jaw."

"No, Kaoru, don't!!" Hikaru yelled, but now his voice was barely heard as the music was raised another notch.

The repetitive sound of the beat of his heart echoed in Kaoru's ears and he tried to pull his head backwards. Shouts and cat calls of 'virgin' and 'cherry' rang in his ears, louder than the music and more alienated that the room itself. His breathing shallower and harder to retain. Blackness loomed around the corners of his visions as the music became lower and more drawn out, matching the pace of his heart.

"Wow, man, back off. He looks faint."

Was this…a panic attack? Well, what a wonderful time for one.

Another hand fisted in his hair, while two more took hold of his arms. How many of them were there now? Kaoru couldn't tell, nor would he even try to differentiate between the touches on his skin. The only thing the red head was capable of recognizing was the angered shouts of his brother, and even those were becoming faint and distant.

Then, in a sudden rush of sound, lights and action, the floor rushed up to meet him with a sickening speed.

--

--

--

Haruhi narrowed her eyes. "Is that all?"

The peaceful posture of the man across the table from her was really starting to piss the brunette off. It wasn't the posture really, it was more of the fact that Kyouya spoke of such vicious things as rape and brutality with the air of someone discussing the weather or something of sorts.

"No, of course not, Haruhi," the bespectacled man assured her lightly, inspecting his knuckles as they flexed exaggeratedly under the unnatural light of the overhead lamp. "But, that's what happened. Whatever the Hitachiin endured, he had no memory of it. In fact, I believe those on the side lines had a better view of what exactly was happening than the actual boy. If memory serves, however, there were…pictures."

Photographs? Disgraceful.

The woman nodded slightly. "Ootori, I understand that you're trying to be helpful," she said in an pressed formality that earned a disdainful scoff from the man across from her. Haruhi crinkled the line between her brows; the 'I-will-succeed' line, as her father had put it. "But, you have been doing nothing but recycling old stories with different words."

An eyebrow raised and the laminated pictures were slide rather violently, back across the table towards Haruhi, who caught only half before they reached the edge, leaving the others to cascade over the edge of the table. She left them there, eyes trained on her ex-friend for any sign of emotion. Anything at all to prove that Kyouya actually had a conscious. If Haruhi could prove that to herself, she would believe him; if he said he didn't do it—that he had cared for the whore he'd supposedly helped in more ways than one—than she'd believe him.

But, be as he was, trained to never show emotion, Kyouya simply redirected the conversation.

"I saw the papers," he told her, eye to eye and no holds barred. "It looks like a perfectly scandalous story, don't you think? A common lawyer stealing the heir of a multimillion dollar school program away from the heir of an equally prosperous French company? At first, I didn't believe it possible of you, Haruhi." Kyouya chuckled darkly. "Looks like I've had some influence on you after all."

Her cheeks stained a ruddy pink at this and her grasp around the pencil in her hand tightened. How dare he talk about her like that!! "I am not some common trollop as you have kindly put it," she muttered defensively. "Nor am I anything like you. Listen, Ootori, as much as you'd like to reminisce about the days when we were—"

"—friends?—"

"—_**acquaintances**_…I would rather get on with the case story. Now…if you'd please go into further detail about your relationship with the boy, it'd be much appreciated."

Another smirk. Closing her eyes briefly, Haruhi thought back to her days in school with the younger version of the murderer in front of her. If Kyouya had known how to puss buttons then, he could now tear out their inner workings and rewire them to suit his prefer reaction.

"Well, you see, Kaoru was not that strong of a person."

--

--

--

The rest of the night was a blur. Too many faces, scents, and feelings all confliction as one in a kaleidoscope of emotions and actions. Pain was ever present—oh, there had been lots, a never ceasing and never ending burning oh his hips, legs and back, like the monsters he was now employed for had tried to bend him every which-way-and-that. After all, they had said they'd break him in…

Someone moved next the Kaoru, and his eyes jerked open, wider than sauce pans and sitting bolt up right; and action that would only lead to his further discomfort. Fear blocked any and all reasonable thought as, like a traumatized animal, Kaoru's amber eyes made a quick once over of the room he occupied, as if checking for danger.

There was none. With a sense of relief, the redhead recognized his own room, the one he shared with Hikaru. That meant that the warm body next to him must be none other than that of his twin.

"Kaoru?" The form under the covers croaked, sitting up and rubbing his identical amber eyes to rid them from sleep. "Kaoru…"

Hikaru seemed to sense the fear and adrenaline that coursed through his twin's veins, for he stopped talking and extended an arm towards his mirror image. Kaoru tensed even more, yet allowed himself to be drawn into a comforting hug.

"Kaoru…Kaoru, I'm so sorry…" Hikaru muttered under his breath. "It should have been me, I don't know what I was thinking making you do that. I'm the older one; it shouldn't have happened to you like that. I should have…but when you fell I just—I couldn't move!! They…the men…I'm so sorry…"

It might have been better to stop Hikaru on his train of self destructing thought, but at the moment, the younger of the Hitachiin twins found it reasonably impossible to unhinge his jaw. Someone must have hit him, because his left cheek felt swollen and heavy.

"H-Hikaru," he finally managed, causing the blubbering mass that was the elder twin to look up. Kaoru noticed his eyes were wet and reached out to brush the tears away. "Don't…Listen, don't blame yourself. It looks a lot worse than it is." A lie, but a necessary one. Kaoru shifted slightly, again noting the pain in his lower back and the reluctance of his legs to work. "However," he added, biting back a groan, "If you want to help me, could you possibly…" He trailed off, gesturing to the chest of drawers.

Heeding the unasked request, the elder of the red heads slid out of bed and grabbed a set of spare cloths from the dresser and heaving his brother up, off the bed, and towards the bathroom across the hall. Here, he sat Kaoru—clad only in boxers—on the seat of the toilet and set about drawing a bath for his brother.

Kaoru smiled slightly, allowing his eyes to close slightly and leaning his head against the cool tile of the bathroom wall. For some reason, he ahd a headache that wouldn't go away.

"Mnnnn…Hiakru?"

"Yes, Kaoru."

Blinking open one eyes slightly, the younger twin eyes his brother. "Did we…are we in?"

Silence. "Yeah...Yeah, we are…I'm their runner boy and you're…you're…"

The silence stretched again and Kaoru stepped over the side of the tub and into the warm water. He allowed his muscles to relax, even if his brain went into overdrive, trying to remember exactly what had happened. He didn't know weather to be grateful for the mental lose of time or to curse it, hating the amnesia for stealing a memory that would plague him without him ever being able to properly identify it.

"Yeah…" Kaoru said, allowing his eyes to close again. Despite having fainted, he had experienced a shitty night's sleep… "Yeah…I'm one of them…"

**le gasp Vote now!! Happy or sad ending!!**

**Sorry this took so long. The one computer that had internet axis dies on me, and that was also the one that I had more than half of this chapter written on, so I waited to recover it. And I tried to make it longer. **

**BTW!! People, this is going to be a multichaptered fic, so don't be put off because there's no romance or KyouKao yet; it'll come. And please forgive me for ghosting over the rape. Not only was it my first time writing it, but I've never been very good at sex.**

**Anyways, you all know what I'm asking for!! Be kind, review!! **


	4. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

Kyouya lazily picked at his fingernails while ignoring the lawyer across from him. Boredly, he watched the light refract off his cuticles and the general gleam of the over-nail in the lamp's cast off. He must return to that commoner nail salon; whatever they did worked like a charm.

"You know," the dark haired man said calmly, "I think that this is pointless. I have already claimed that I am not at fault for the boy's death, so why am I even here?"

"You volunteered for suspicious questioning," Haruhi offered, but she was generally ignored.

"There's no real reason for me to be here, so why don't I take my leave?" And with that he stood, limbs completely relaxed, as if he knew every thing would work out fine. Haruhi resisted the urge to roll her eyes and stood too, moving slightly so it was clear that the dark haired man was not to leave the room. At this, Kyouya raised an eyebrow. "What? More questions?" He himself, did not restrain the obvious exaggeration of an eye roll and sat back down, as dignified as ever. Haruhi situated herself across from him.

"You're skirting the question, Ootori," she told him sharply, slightly reprimanding. "I want to know, when was the last time that you saw the Hitachiin boy?"

"Around twelve thirty am, the day of his murder."

"And," Haruhi asked, relieved at finally having gotten a direct answer. "What was the nature of this meeting?"

A devilish smile that almost didn't seem like it would belong to the raven haired man curved his lips. "Pleasure."

It took a few split seconds for the actual words to sink in, yet as they did, a slightly horrified expression. Haruhi's jaw hit the floor and her eyes widened slightly, making her already large iris' stunning to the max. Kyouya grinned.

"You…you had se--…sexual intercourse with the boy a few hours before he was killed?"

A low chuckle that made the woman rethink her previous statement/question.

"Haruhi, for you to understand the full quality and timing of my relationship with the hooker downstairs, would take more brains, time and money than this entire department could gather at one low-end bake sale, so please, let me simplify it for you and this time—" he raised a finger, successfully cutting her off before she could retort at this insult "—don't interrupt me. I highly doubt the men behind that mirror would be too happy if you did; nor would those operating the larger scale versions of that toy recorder you've got there."

The female lawyer felt herself sweat-drop. This guy really donned the Shadow King mask well, even if it had been ages since he had first been dubbed that particular nick name. Her chocolate brown eyes closed and Haruhi took a deep, calming breath before exhaling slowly and cracking open both eyes.

--

---

--

It took two days for the regret to set in. And when it came, it was not the gentle trickle of despaired and wistful thinking that it had been anything else. No it was the realization, hitting both red haired boys with power enough to knock them over; they were so fucked.

It took six days for Kaoru to fully get used to the general idea of what he was expected to go through, and make his body do, for this job. Also, the type of people he was expected to bed; the rule at this place was 'first come, first served' and 'never deny a profit'.

The inner workings of the whorehouse were something akin to that of an auction house. Men, women and those who were somewhere in between, (where the relationship was so close that you couldn't really tell until they had their cloths off) would file into a small room with a raised stage. The whole place was dark, and when the music and strove lights finally came up, the 'items' that were up for bidding were displayed; first by gender, then hair color and last, by experience. And that man had been right; not everyone favored the virgins.

The bidding would often start off around seven hundred American dollars, and escalate from there. It wasn't until the red headed boy snuck a glance over the figures and calculations that he realized this was no small scale organization; if some of the other's stories were to be believed, they had not come here, but were forcibly dragged out of their homes in the middle of the night and threatened with death and that of their family.

Kaoru shuddered when the woman told him this. She had proceeded to lift up her shirt and show him her lower back, where a strange form of markings revolved around twisted 'x' marks and single lines. Only upon asking did Kaoru discover that this was the system's way of tracking who did what, and the punishment. The woman stated that she had come from a large, yet close family, and that the 'x' marks were her nieces and nephews. She then started to cry, and sobbed that they were also the times she'd tried to escape.

The younger of the Hitachiin twins was in a catastrophic state by the time he had reached home, begging and pleading Hikaru to 'never listen to me if I say I want to quit' or 'please don't ever persuade me to switch places. I won't let you'. Nodding, shocked, the elder of the boys tried to make heads or tails of what his twin was saying.

Hikaru was in and entire different arm of the corporation, often not seeing his brother for hours at a time. In such a short time, although both boys had managed to work their ways to within the top five chosen for drugs and sex, it came at a heavy price.

Every time Hikaru made a run, he was at risk for being caught by the police and every time Kaoru was with a client, he risked the immense emotional trauma and the constant and untrustworthy spurts of violence from each man. They weren't single without a reason.

However, both boys rationalized that it was worth it, especially when they brought some of their earnings home to their mother. She had gaped at them, and hugged the boys, not even saying anything, but just crying. This, in itself, brought another realization upon the Hitachiin twins.

Their mother knew. She knew where they were going and what they were doing. She might not have been 100% sure before, but now with the money, there was no way to doubt it. Their mother knew and she wasn't doing anything. This brought another change of events, once that the twin affectionately called 'The Marking'. Both boys had conceded to get matching tattoos, to symbolize their defiance and to release their anger. Hikaru went though with it; Kaoru, being a tiny bit put off by the unclean needle, had chickened out. He had, however, conceded to get an airbrush one that would last for a month. And thus, the boys curled even farther into their own world.

Around this time—when Kaoru was 'four weeks young' and Hikaru had graduated from being a small time runner to inter-territorial gigs, an epic break up was occurring.

Not that either of the twins really followed the news much (honestly, when did they have time?) but news of Ootori Kyouya's great split with his wife of four years reached them soon enough. Apparently, Ootori Renge had finally gotten tired of being second to work and money, called her husband out in the middle of a fancy restaurant, then dissolved into tears and said she wanted a divorce. Now, the court system had taken on the trial and it was pending further documentation.

Documentation was taking too long, and that's what brought the tall, composed man to the Main House, asking for someone to take his mind away from the present (more of demanded, actually) and latched eyes with the tired and overworked red head across the room.

--

---

--

Haruhi relaxed forcibly again, clearly happy that they were finally getting somewhere along the line of incriminating evidence. She briefly checked the tape recorder and saw that it still had a good few hours left of life time. Good. Something told her this story was going to be extensive and, as she had promised, she wouldn't interrupt.

--

---

--

That day (or more of night; a whore's inner clock was different) was a bad one. Kaoru was sore, beaten, over-sexed and—what was more—he currently had peanut butter in unnecessary places that he was sure would never come off. So, sticky, sweaty and smelling strongly of peanuts, the red head reentered the main room with his client and bayed the man goodnight. Needless to say, he was somewhat put off when the taller brunette gave him a quick peck on the lips and said, "I'll be home by eight, honey."

Weary and discomforted, the boy traipsed across the filled dance room and sat on a swiveling barstool.

Although a great deal of business came from the Cat Walk Room, not all of the transactions were made in the dimly lit modeling agency. Saliva was swapped in the bathrooms, money was traded upfront on the bar, drugs were reversed pick pocketed everywhere, AIDS were exchanged in the back rooms and clientele was traded upfront.

In need of a little fun, the workers at the Underground had created a little game. The 'See Who' game, where three workers would simultaneous see who could persuade a walk-in, or someone who had not participated in the bidding. This was rather entertaining to watch in two ways. For one, if someone was new, like most walk-ins, he was more likely to become flustered and blubbering with three beauties hitting on him shamelessly, and two to see the other's techniques. Maybe pick a few of your own up, as well.

The See Who game had been going on long before Kaoru ever joined the Underground, and he was thrown into it's midst by collateral. But now…now he was uninterested in playing any more. He just wanted to go home, sleep, shower repetitively and hopefully get a chance to talk to Hikaru.

Subconsciously, Kaoru felt his eye lids closing.

"Hey, Hitachiin!" He jerked out of his daze to see the burley, overly buff ring master of this circus leering at him from behind the bar. "Clocking out early?"

He was in no mood. "Yeah. I'm tired." Was all the red head offered in return. He was still not entirely forgiving of the man for 'breaking him in' as the people here so delicately put it. Attempting to match the other man's leer and no longer falling asleep on his feet, the red head slid his folded arms across the counter top and narrowed his eyes. "Can I go home." He spoke slowly, making sure his boss didn't miss a single word.

The man laughed loudly, throwing his head back and belting out the one sided humor at the redhead's situation. Kaoru rolled his eyes and felt his temples twitch in annoyance and pain. He was not in the mood for this.

"No," the stronger man told him simply, laugh contained yet still clearly present in his voice.

"Why not?" Kaoru gritted out, his eyes feeling swollen and his throat tightening. He was not going to cry; not here and not now…But he would have liked to. It would have made everything better; the pressure, the worry, the strain and the all over sickness of this life style. But he didn't.

"Hum…" the man pondered, placing a thumb and pointer finger on his chin and seemingly contemplating the room behind the red head. Straining his ears, Kaoru listened for what possible task the monster would make him complete before he was allowed to leave.

There was the derogatory sound of someone flushing the toilet in the distance, as well as the steady thump-thump of a bed's head boards hitting the wall. The reasonably acute sound of someone throwing up was also detectable, along with the snide remarks of the people around the unfortunate vomit-ee. Ew.

The door to the main room swung open and shut, and the ring leader's snide voice uttered, "That one". All this happened so quickly that Kaoru was caught rather off guard. His mind had been concentrating on the thump-thump of the beds above him and the aching feeling in his bones.

"What?" the red head asked, twirling on the dial and directing his gaze towards the door. There, framed by the doorway with the background of the thick door, was a tall man, most of his head and face obscured by a large hat and a coat with a large upturned collar. He stood there, emitting an almost dangerous aura that made one want to lean away and closer at the same time.

The man's gaze crossed the room towards the ring leader and Kaoru and he started towards them. From behind him, the Hitachiin twin felt the hot breath of the older man on his neck as he breathed, "Here's your choice, brat. Do whatever he likes or let me fuck you--plain and simple—into the headboard."

Jerking so as to rid himself of the evil man's presence, Kaoru found himself colliding, head first, into the walk in's trench coated body. The younger red head simply bounced off him and caught the sent of some expensive smelling colon. Vaugly, he noticed the fabric of the man's coat was in good condition. Gucci, perhaps?

"Oh—I'm so sorry!!" he said quickly, eyes wide and innocent as he glanced at the man's Adam's Apple, unable to look him in the eyes. Clients always said very elaborate things about his eyes, and it was always disquieting.

There was a moment of silence while the ring master's words ran through Kaoru's head. 'Him or me'. Well, he'd blown one of the options, hadn't he? No one would want a person who had collided with you head on in an attempt to escape his boss.

Breathing a retired sigh, the red head side stepped and allowed the walk in to pass him and speak to the ring leader. He paid no attention to their hushed conversation, preferring instead to look around wistfully and wishing on…nothing really.

He wished Hikaru was here with him. Things always went so much better when his older brother was around; be it his presence or just his effect of the people here, Kaoru didn't know. But all the same, it was nice having his brother with him.

Kaoru also wished for an Advil…direly. And to go home and to take a nice, long shower within blood boiling degrees and—

"Hitachiin!!"

His musings were cut short when he was forced to twirl around and face the two older men at the bar. One, the walk in and the other the ring master. The second of the two looking rather pissed off and the other…curious? Well, curiosity killed the cat, right?

He'd won. Without even trying, too.

Resisting the urge to laugh and jump at the prospect of being better than his boss (who had doubtlessly tried to dissuade the customer from picking him), the boy swayed his hips, almost cockily, towards the pair and—in his most 'desirable' voice—hummed, "What can I do you…for?"

It was a bad pun and an even worse spirit to be told in. Being chosen by a random walk in, who could be anything from a priest to a mass murderer, was not the thing to get excited about. At least with the scheduled clients there were extensive background checks. It seemed like a flaw in security to be so careful with the people who took the time to plan these excursions, and not the random ones who could have walked by and said, 'oh, this will be the perfect time for me to fulfill my life long dream of play raping, beating and eventually killing a hooker!'.

The taller man shifted, turning his back slightly towards the door as if afraid someone would walk in at any moment and catch him here. Always a bad sign.

"I require your services," he began, coolly and complacent as ever. It was out of place in the settings and almost sounded like a British accent in China.

"—Doesn't everybody who comes here?—"

"—Of a certain private nature—"

"—Again, doesn't everybody?—"

He was being cocky and should really stop, but it didn't seem to annoy the client, and it was simply pissing off the ring master.

"—And I require your confidence and best abilities."

"Well, I'm a little tired, but I'll try my best." He grinned at the man and, for a second, felt like he was sitting—joking—with his brother again, but those calm days with Hikaru had long since passed into bleaker memories. "I mean…uh, right…Here, let me take you to one of the back rooms."

He made to get up, but a hand quickly shot out to wrap around his elbow. Glancing down, Kaoru recognized the greasy, hang nailed fingers of none other than his boss.

"Your client requests that you accompany him to the, uh, destination of his choice."

Feeling the bottom drop out of his stomach, the red head bucked visibly in the other man's grasp. He'd heard the horror stories about the girls and guys that went wherever the clients wanted. Half of them turned up dead, and the other half didn't turn up at all.

"What, I—NO!!" he attempted to protest, but by that time, he found himself being directed out of the door by force. "I!! Wait! I don't want to—stop!!"

No one paid him any heed. They'd all seen this routine thousands of time.

A car was running outside, the steam from it's exhaust pipe curling into the chilly winter air. Snow crunched mercifully under the client's boots as he directed Kaoru to the car, who's door was opened by a chauffeur. It was less of a shove, more of a being poked in the perfect ticklish spot that made the red head sit down in the comfortable back seat of the limo. Limo.

What was this guy, Mr. Money-Bags or something?

Breathing fast, the boy edged his way across the seat as the older man climbed into the car and shut the door. The driver seemed to have been given a direction pre-Kaoru-nab and the engine hummed to life, thudding happily as Kaoru's heart played harmony to it, beating just as fast in pure terror.

"Uh…Can I ask where we're going?" More like can I ask you to drop me off at the first corner to your left?

The client looked at him, the light grey eyes hidden behind films of glass. Glasses? Kaoru defiantly hadn't noticed that before. He also noticed, before reminding himself of the no eye-contact rule, that the skin around those eyes was tainted rather red.

"To a prearranged location," was all he got in response.

"Yeah, I get that," Kaoru said, snappishly. "But I kinda want to know where incase you go all psycho on me and try to pull a Hannibal Lector."

This gained a small laugh from the man, and the red head was slightly taken aback. Laughter? Honestly? This man was crazy.

"I assure you—Hitachiin, was it?—that I am anything but a cannibal…Even if I couldn't get caught for committing any crime by the authorities. No need to worry."

This statement did nothing to help his worry…if anything, it heightened it.

"Okay…so where are we going…?"

"Persistent, aren't you?"

"When I have to be. Where?"

"A hotel."

Hotel? "Wait, not a motel?"

A raised eyebrow greeted his questions. It could symbolize either annoyance or surprise and both were appropriate emotions for the current situation. "As in a full, high class, five star hotel on the water front."

Kaoru gasped audibly. Nothing he'd either lived or worked in had ever been that nice. This received a funny look from the client and that's when it hit the red head. He couldn't keep calling this man 'the client'. It would be distasteful, not to say uncomfortable for him to come, screaming 'oh client'.

"Say, what's your name?"

A smirk folded the lips of the man and he adjusted his glasses casually. "That is none of your business."

"Fine," Kaoru rebuked. "But someone's gonna be suspicious if I have to called you 'client' instead of an actual name, you know."

"If I cared about suspicion, I wouldn't have booked the suit in the penthouse when it's common knowledge that myself and my wife no longer sleep together."

Kaoru had nothing good to say to that. "Oh…" he simpered slightly, voice a tad bit higher. He hadn't seen that one coming. But, determined as ever, he pressed the matter. "Can I at least have a first name, then?"

A small moment of indecision in the other man's eyes and he nodded. "You may called me Kyouya."

It was a nice name. "Ky-ou-ya," he said exotically, letting it roll off his tongue animatedly. He smiled at him. "See? That wasn't too hard, way it?"

He got no answer. The car pulled to stop and the client—Kyouya—got out and onto the busy strip. Kaoru followed him, laughing slightly. This was going to be interesting. If anything, the younger of the Hitachiin twins was somewhat…enjoying himself.

The penthouse was as pretty as the pictures in the catalogues had shown. White marble bathroom, kitchen and tiled floors, plush couches, and a golden trimmed featherbed, with humungous headboard. Subconsciously, Kaoru was sure that one wouldn't bang against the wall, no matter what they did in that bed.

Speaking of that…

Kaoru felt the butterflies return to his stomach. He still had no idea what this Kyouya guy's fetish was…Feet? Lace? Hell, he'd even met a man once that had a fetish for dressing his hooker's up in football garb than shouting 'fumble' and body slamming them. Luckily, that man had not been the red head's client.

"So…uh…" he sat on one of the many couches and picked at the trim. "Uh…Kyouya?"

He looked up to see the brunette man, still decked out in his hat and coat, holding up a suitcase. Jumpy, Kaoru's imagination provided him with all sorts of mental images of what could be in that suit case, including—he gulped at the thought—his own dead body, being wheeled out of here in a light red suit case that was—

Kyouya clicked the thing open to reveal…

"Is that soap?"

The man nodded, shrugging off his coat to reveal a nice suit, and his hat to reveal an equally nice stock of black hair. "Yes. I would like you to chose your favorite scent and take a nice hot bath."

Ah. "Oh, so you like doing it in water, right?'

"Wrong. After that, please make yourself comfortable in the suit. Order anything you want from the room service. Free acsess to the minibar if—any only if—you are of legal drinking limit."

"Why should that matter? I've heard that I'm good either way." Kaoru interestedly picked through the many soaps. One really enticed him: 'Lemongrass and Mint'.

Kyouya sighed, exasperatedly for the first time that night. "Look, Hitachiin, I understand the awkwardness of this situation, but either way, I was raised to court a woman first, and most of all, to be polite."

"I'm not a woman, am I Kyouya."

"Of course not!! You're barely even a man, Hitachiin. You're a boy. Now please stop making this harder than it already is."

The red head nodded. He continued the thumb through the soaps, even if he'd already set his sights on the lemongrass one. This just gave him another excuse to talk to this increasingly interesting character that Kyouya was proving to be.

He only looked up when he heard the door to the suit click closed. He'd just been left here, on his own…to take a bath.

All those stories about the girls who went with men and were killed were probably all fake; most of them had probably been treated like this and decided to marry the guy right then and there.

Forgoing the bath for the time being, the red head took the time to look around. It was the perfect hotel room; clean to the naked eye and well stocked. The mini bar was locked, which caused a bit of a scuffle between Kaoru and the door, but to no avail. The closet was empty, but extensive, much like Kaoru's old one; the one he'd had when he'd still been the son of the noted fashion designer, not of the noted waitress. Then, he found the bathroom and decided that the bath could no longer wait.

It was dimly light with at least a hundred votive candles, and there wasn't one thing remotely sexual about it. It was simply soothing. And soon, the smell of lemongrass and mint permeated the air as the enormous black tiled tub filled with slightly bubbly water.

It was the first real bath in months. The other, quick ones where the water was always cold, didn't count. This was a bath, those were a wash. This was relaxation and those were…something else.

After what seemed like an hour, Kaoru finally discovered his skin wrinkling and decided—although his body protested greatly—that it was time to get out. A fluffy bathrobe and several stolen bottled of mini shampoo later, the red head reemerged into the suit. It was still empty, mercifully, but warm. He found his old cloths and quickly slipped them of, noting in distaste the layer of grime on the fabrics that was highly noticeable now that his skin was void off all the crap.

And then he saw the television. A huge, 46" plasma flat screen in the master bedroom, perfectably angled so that the occupants of the bed could watch a football game or something from the comfort of lying down. He had to try it.

The bed was heavenly, too. Almost too much so. It's softness enveloped him and, as if three thousand weights had been taken off his shoulders, kaoru felt himself sink into the down. It was…wonderful…

And before he knew it, he was asleep.

--

---

--

Haruhi frowned. "Are you to say that you never had sex with the Hitachiin?"

Kyouya dug in his pockets and pulled out a cigarette. "When did I ever say that? I only insinuated that he fell asleep before I returned to the room. I never said what happened after that. But if you'd like…"

--

---

--

He was breathing heavily, hair flopping into his sweaty face as he moaned lowly, throat constricting as his head hit the pillows that were pressed against the headboard again. He'd been wrong, the headboard did move when they thrust—

--

---

--

"I don't need specifics, Ootori," Haruhi quickly cut in, a little louder than necessary and slamming her pen and legal pad harshly onto the table.

Kyouya smiled at her. "Fine, but you asked. Got a light?"

The lawyer looked at him skeptically and quickly got up to peak her head out of the door and ask a random passer by for a lighter. Finally, she returned and extended it out to the ex-Shadow King, flicking the side and causing a flame to appear against the metal end of it.

The bespectacled man light the smoke, then immediately dropped the cigarette onto the stone floor and ground it out with his boot. "I don't smoke," he offered simply, shrugging.

Haruhi wanted to smack him so badly, but restrained herself. "Okay…and when did the relationship get deadly?"

"It always was," Kyouya told her lightly. "That bar man—the one who whored them all out—he had a crush on Kaoru. Then there was the matter of Kaoru's crush on me and my own reciprocated crush on him. And let's not forget that fact that he was underage and I overage. I guess there was just no way for us to get by, was there?"

He obviously didn't expect Haruhi to answer, so she didn't.

"I suppose that it really started getting deadly the last month of his life…We'd known each other _intimately_ for about a month…and that was when we slipped up."

Interested, the lawyer leaned forward and knit her brows. "How so?"

A small smile, almost guilty and still somewhat regretful smile, but one all the same. "I told him that I loved him…and he said it back."

**Okay, so sorry it took me so long to update. I actually had to do this at school because my computers are being internet retards. Anyway, I tried to make this one a bit longer and more detailed.**

**But...I need help. What should the ring master's name be? Any hints? I take all sugestions!!!**


	5. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

The loft overlooked the entire downtown of Japan, lights buzzing noisily and the cars honking repetitively as the street lights changed colors. Inside the cozy, rented apartment, a red headed teenager stood at the lightly draped windows and breathed in the clear city air as the breeze ruffled the curtains. Behind him, the king sized bed held a single occupant, who's breaths came slowly and evenly, exhausted and deep in sleep.

Suddenly, the peace and quiet was disrupted by the joyful buzzing of the corny cell phone jingle that Kaoru had picked out just for his brother. Hastily, the younger of the Hitachiin twins crossed the floor and dug though the pockets of his pants, which were clumped in a pile. Finally extracting the cell phone, Kaoru flipped it open and glanced warily at Kyouya. The older man continued snoozing deeply and oblivious to the rings; the red head breathed a sigh of relief and moved into the living room.

"Hello?" he whispered into the receiver. "Hikaru?"

A loud, angered shout was his answer. Pulling the cell away from his ear, Kaoru listened as his twin shouted at him. "WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!?!?! THEY SAID YOU LEFT, AFTER YOUR SHIFT, WITH SOME MAN WHO WAS A REGULAR!!! WHERE THE FUCKING HELL ARE YOU!!!"

Shit…

"Listen, Hikaru, I'm at a loft at 51st and Aki—But I'm fine! Okay? There's no need to freak out, okay?"

His words seemed to have a calming effect on his twin, for Hikaru did not continue screaming. Instead, in a steely voice he said, "Don't move; I'm coming to get you."

Kaoru rolled his eyes. "And just how do you expect to do that? Last time I checked, you couldn't drive, didn't have a car and weren't allowed to waste money on a cab or bus, and seeing as Aki is only sixteen miles uphill from our house, I seriously doubt that you'll run or even walk."

Both boys flinched. Never had Kaoru sounded so exasperated nor annoyed when he talked to his twin; never!! They had always had an open relationship that left no void for misunderstanding and miscommunication. All assumptions had always been spot on and it had always been the others that couldn't guess anything about them.

When had they become such strangers?

"K…Kaoru?" Hikaru asked, sounding more hesitantly and suspicious than before.

"Yeah…Listen, sorry about that, Hikaru…" he mumbled into the receiver. "What's wrong…you sound tense."

It was more of a guess than an actually analogy, but it was correct.

"They think that you're…you're in love with this guy you're fuc—I mean, with…" his brother said quietly. Kaoru had to strain his ears to hear what was being said on the other end of the line.

"Well, I wouldn't believe all the talk you hear down there," the younger of the red headed twins said. He was now looking for a piece of paper and a pencil, intending to leave a note for Kyouya when he finally awakened. "Mmmm…Hey, Hikaru," Kaoru said, shifting his phone to the other ear, "How'd they even know I was here?"

There was a muffled, disconcerted reply on the other end of the line, which caused Kaoru to pause in his shuffling and stand straight up. "Hikaru," he said reproachfully, if not the tiniest bit scared. "What…what did they say?"

"They…Well, the Ringleader's following you…He had been for some time, now, too…Kaoru, I don't like this. It's not right!"

"No shit, really? I always thought whoring myself out in public to some of the people I'd always respected as a business man to be fun. Big fucking surprise there, huh? Oh, shit—" he swore some more as a mug of scalding hot coffee was unsettled by his frantic search and flowed hotly down his leg. Trying not to scream, and vaguely wondering what hot coffee was doing in the middle of the apartment, Kaoru bit his lip—hard.

"Hey, Kaoru? Kao, can you hear me? Say something."

Placing the phone on the marble counter top of the kitchen, the younger of the Hitachiin twins quickly made to swat himself on the legs with a dish towel. It worked, too, successfully cooling his legs, although the coffee stains were now forever engraved on that particular pair of pants…

"Kaoru! Come on, man, answer me!!"

"What? Oh, yeah, Hikaru I'm fine. I just spilled some coffee on my leg…What? No, I am not having sex in the kitchen…That's hardly any of your business, I think, and I wouldn't tell you any way…What the hell—"

A light flicked on in the hallway, and startled, Kaoru dropped the phone. He heard it clatter to the floor and buzz in a deathly way before Hikaru's shouts—still audible even away from the ear—faded into nothingness.

Someone was behind him. Someone short, blond and female, with humungous hazel—if somewhat puffy and red—eyes that gazed into his own with a sort of lost fierceness.

"What…what are you doing in my house?" Ootori Renge asked brokenly, her voice strained and dry sounding. Kaoru had no response to this and simply shook his head, mouth open and eyes pleading.

Renge looked towards the counter. "You…you spilled my coffee, red headed whore…" she said sadly, walking over to the counter and crouching down to inspect the damage to the linoleum. Too late, the Hitachiin wished he had put a rag over it to prevent the stain of coffee on white tile.

He was about to apologize, when he heard a strong sounding sniff from the woman's general direction. "Uh…madam, I'm sorry…I was only doing my job."

"What are you?!?!" she snarled, rounding on Kaoru like a rabid jackal would a wounded rabbit. "Twelve? Thirteen? Just who the hell do you think you are, waltzing into my life and fucking my husband like that!! What are you? A life ruiner?!?!?!"

It was then that the red head noticed the half empty vodka bottle and the distinct swagger in Renge's voice. She was drunk.

"Uh, listen madam. I'm sorry, but I have to leave…Like, now."

Two bleary, if not bloodshot eyes turned their attention towards him and the blond hiccupped. "G-go?" she asked, blinking confusedly. She smiled, "Why no, my dear sweet sodomite. You cannot go yet…I insist, come have a drink with me."

"Miss, I think you've had enough."

"I'll—hic—say when I've had enough. Either way, you haven't had any. Now sit."

Kaoru gulped and looked briefly towards the bedroom, watching as Renge made her general direction towards the still open door. For a second, he thought she was going to wake up Kyouya and insist that they all have a sort of pow-wow, but instead she simply closed the door, and turned to smile at him. She held a finger up to her fingers and blinked at him. Kaoru felt a shiver run up his spin.

"Come…drink with me, whore. I insist."

And, for no other reason that the woman scared him, the red head did. Following the blond into the living room and seated himself on the couch. Funny, Kaoru thought, looking where the woman sat. I wonder if she even knows that that is where we were fu—

"You had sex in this room, didn't you?" Renge giggled, pointing to the couch behind her. "Right here, right?" He simply gave her a blank stare. How could she know that? The woman chuckled. "We did here, too. When we were still…in love."

Oh…this explained the drinking.

Renge hiccupped sadly and brushed her fingers over the couch cushions. "I envy you, whore. No other has ever held my darling Kyouya's attention for more than a week or two. Our marriage…it was hasty and poorly thought out. I think the only good thing about it was the bonding of our families: at least that was all he cared about." She gave a watery, yet dry and humorless laugh.

"Listen…madam, I don't see what this has to do with me—"

"What's your name?"

Kaoru gulped. "M-my name?"

"Yes, stupid red head. I want a name to call you by. I want a name to scream at you while I kick you out of my house. I want a name to taunt my husband with while we are going through the legal motions of divorce. I want a name to carve on the head stone of my dignity. 'Here lies the integrity of Ootori Renge: Forever murdered by the whore-ish tendencies of…' What's your name?"

He breathed. What harm could be done now? Everything had already happened for the worse. "Hitachiin Kaoru…"

"And how old are you?"

"What's with all the questions? I don't see how that's any of your business in a situation like that. Would you like to know weather I wear boxers or briefs?"

She laughed. A high pitched, loud and drunken laugh. "Oh, you are funny, Hit—hic—achiin…I can guess…"

He took that for an 'I was watching' and moved to fold his arms across his chest in a vague attempt to shield his body from the woman in front of him. "Jesus Christ."

"Don't bring him into this," she hissed darkly, dropping the whiskey glass she'd just picked up back onto the table with a loud chink. "Cesus Jhrist hasn't done anything for me, nor you. He has left us both, poor Kaoru. And that's why…"

"Listen…I really have to be going. My brother's waiting for me and if he gets mad—"

"He can wait," Renge snapped. She growled at him and reached for her purse that she had laid on the couch next to herself.

Kaoru felt his mouth run dry as a glint of silver caught his eyes, but it turned out to be only a silver compact which Renge flipped open to glare at her reflection. "Am I ugly, Kaoru?" she asked him, before closing the makeup case. "Is that why my husband wants you instead of me? Do you think most men find me unattractive? Well, they don't." She hiccupped and put the make up back into her purse. There was another flash of silver, but the red head—expecting another makeup item—was too slow to duck or lung away when the distraught woman pulled a small hand held revolver on him. Kaoru froze, eyes pinioned on the weapon as the drunk continued to talk.

"Many, many, many men asked my father for my hand in marriage, but my father was a foolish man. He said that I myself could chose my partner, and I wanted an Ootori. My father let me have one, and I loved him. He…I'm not sure. I don't think Kyouya ever truly loved me. As I said before, he got tired of me quickly…Maybe it was my lack of a coc—" she hiccupped again and coughed slightly before continuing. "Anyway, boy. You've come into my life and stolen my husband. I know he didn't mean it about the divorce, but then you came along and you ruined it—YOU FUCKING RUINED IT!!!!"

Kaoru dove out of the way just in time. Renge pulled the trigger, but no sound came from the barrel of the gun. Kaoru rolled and collided painfully with the coffee table but paid his aching side no heed as he sprinted for the door. The woman may have been drunk enough to forget to cock the gun, but now that the mistake was realized, it was only a matter of time before she rectified it and took up aim again.

Kaoru reached the door to the outside world and flung it open, not caring if it slammed and bounced back to hit him, nor if anyone heard. Fleeing the dangerous ex of his lover was the only thing that mattered now as the younger of the Hitachiin twins sprinted down the stairs and out the service entrance of the building. He stopped there, exhausted at having run down seven flights of stair, as well as slightly dizzy. Kaoru could feel the adrenaline pumping through his veins, as well as the 'thump-thump' of his heart against his rib cage.

I could have died in there, he though. Kyouya's crazy ex wanted to kill me: she WOULD have killed me of she hadn't been drunk. What'll happen next time—No, no! Idiot, there's not going to BE a next time. Never again; that was too scary…

"I have to end this," he muttered to himself.

The money wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth the pain and fear, nor the suffering of mental trauma. If this had been less of a career and more for fun, than perhaps he could have not given up so quickly, but this was no longer just a way to earn money.

--

---

--

Haruhi leaned across the table. "What was it after that night, Ootori?"

Kyouya leaned back and smiled before airily demanding, "Get me a cup of coffee and I'll tell you."

The lawyer's eyes narrowed and she folded her arm resolutely over her chest. "I am not your lap dog, Ootori. I am not going to fetch your coffee or a scone any more. I am not your subordinate."

"Still can't get over all the things I made you get me in high school?" Haruhi was about to object before Kyouya over road her. "It wasn't my fault that you were in my debt. That vase a priceless family heirloom, and it was only fair that you worked it off."

The sound of teeth being ground resounded throughout the room, intensifying as the older man made another demanding look before gesturing towards the door. "Go on, Fujioka. Get me a coffee."

She did. With a hint of disgust, Haruhi dryly noted that she had even remembered how the Shadow King liked his coffee. Black, one cream, no sugar. Disgusting.

"Here's your drink," the brunette said harshly, slamming the cup down on the table in front of the bespectacled man before assuming her spot across from him. "Not, tell me: what did Kaoru consider his life after his run in with your ex-wife?"

Kyouya sipped his coffee and smiled. "A game of survival, I think he said. Anyway, he knew something bad was going to happen, so he simply tried to ready himself. But, I guess some wounds run too deep for the defensive nature to heal."

Haruhi barely followed his flower language. "What wounds?"

"The cuts of passion and desire and lust and sheer physical attraction. That's why—despite his resolve to end it with me—he came back."

--

---

--

It was chilly. It was barely January, and the air was still capable of frosting the car windows and grass overnight. Shivering, Kaoru dug his hand into his pocket and continued to pace back and forth in front of the bus stop. The damned bus was late, and he really had to get home on time tonight.

Their mother was going to take the night off and actually cook them a meal, which would be a pleasant change from the tv dinners or frozen waffles he and Hikaru had been ingesting on a regular basis. Even thinking about his mother's cooking—however burnt most things turned out—made the Hitachiin's mouth water.

"You should close your mouth," came the dark and haunting voice from behind him. Twirling on the spot, Kaoru found himself face to face with the dark figure that hulked in the alley way directly behind the bus alcove. When he had jumped, the figure did too, revealing himself to be wearing some type of cloak that billowed around him whenever he moved. In spite of himself, Kaoru was intrigued.

"E-excuse me?" he asked the figure.

"I said you should close your mouth, dear boy. You were salivating." Tottering forward slightly until he was in the light of the overhanging street lamp, the figure slipped both hands out of the confines of his cloak, only to reveal one of them was adorned with a cat puppet.

However, bemusedly, the red head wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Sorry. I was just thinking about my mother's cooking."

"Hungry?"

"Extremely."

The stranger laughed an evil and chilling laugh that made Kaoru's hairs stand on end. He wanted nothing more than to grab an extra bright flash light and shine it directly on the man as he sat down next to him on the bus bench and extended the un-cat-hand towards him.

"Hello. You may call me Nekozawa. What may I call you?"

"Hitachiin," he said, shaking the man's hand slightly. "Which bus are you waiting for?"

Nekozawa shrugged. "None of them. I just don't like to see young boys out on their own. Someone might try and take advantage of them."

Kaoru laughed dryly and tried to shift away from the crazy man without being noticed. However, the cloaked figure did notice and extended the creepy cat hand out towards the red head. He moved his fingers to make the cat rub his hands together evilly before speaking for the puppet.

"You are in grave danger from those you hold dear, my friend," he said. Kaoru raised an eyebrow. This man really was crazy. Perhaps it would be best for him to give up the comfort of the bus and walk. However, there was always the issue of the man following him, and that wouldn't be good.

"Uh, yeah. Sure," he agreed, glancing behind him for any sign of the upcoming bus. There was none. Dammit.

A hand grasped his arm and Kaoru yelped before turning to face the brilliantly blue eyes under the hood. He gulped. "I am serious, Hitachiin. Do not trust anyone within the next few months, else the world shall think you to have vanished. Someone will kill you!"

"Look, Nekozawa-senpai, I don't know what you're talking about," he glanced upwards and noticed that his bus had finally arrived. Standing up, Kaoru tried to step towards the doors when he was pulled back down so that his ear was enveloped by the hooded man's hot breath. "What the f—"

"Beware the colors black and red. They both mean a lot to you, but the blood that is to be spilled and the darkness after is not the answer."

"Right, uh, sure," and he pulled his limb from the grasp of the other man before hurriedly stepping into the bright lights of the oversized tube. Nekozawa stood and it looked like he was about to follow the red head, but seemed to think better of it.

Depositing his money, Kaoru flopped down onto a seat in the near empty bus and rubbed his forehead. That man must have been on something, some high quality stuff, too, else he wouldn't have believed what he was saying. Either way, it was disconcerting.

What had the Nekozawa man meant by the colors 'red and black'? Surely they couldn't pertain to any one person…Surely…

--

---

--

Someone was shaking his shoulder. A woman. An old woman, with scraggly gray hair and a wrinkled face. Blinking, Kaoru opened his eyes to realize that he had, indeed, fallen asleep on the bus and that the ride was close to over.

"You shouldn't be out here this late," the woman said sternly. Kaoru nodded his agreement and looked out a window. Thankfully, he hadn't missed his stop, which would save him a great deal of walking.

The old woman continued to ramble in a way that made the red head question whether or not her dementia meds were working before he reached up to pull the string that requested a stop. He stood as the bus slowed, and the lady didn't even seem to notice as he exited the bus and reentered the cold night air. Kaoru shivered. He really needed a proper coat.

Walking past the stop and around the corner, he found himself facing the chain link fence that warded off his small home to the rest of the world. Pushing on the lock, the younger of the Hitachiin twins walked up the small walk way towards the rather lopsided house that barely had a second story, smiling softly to himself. Why? He had no idea.

Suddenly, there was a flash of colors (mainly red and dark blue) and something hot and heavy collided with Kaoru, knocking him over and proceeding to lock it's arms around his neck. Startled, the boy drew in a sharp breath before letting it out. He recognized the scents: peppermint and maple syrup. It was Hikaru.

"Nice to—" he heaved the other's body off of himself "—See you, too, Hikaru. Miss me?"

"Of course, baka. And I was worried! Why'd you hang up on me?"

"I didn't," Kaoru explained, slipping his hand into his brothers and beginning to walk towards the door. "My phone broke. I dropped it and it shattered. Sorry, I would have called you, but I figured it would just be better to come home." It was half the truth. He had broken his phone, but the idea of calling Hikaru back from a public pay phone hadn't even crossed his mind.

"Oh, well I guess that's okay…" The two of them opened the door and were engulfed in a wave of smoke as the smell of burning bread singed their nostrils. Kaoru hacked and Hikaru leaned backwards so as to inhale some fresh air. Mom was cooking.

"Kaoru!" Mrs. Hitachiin said loudly from the small kitchen. Her voice sounded tired, over worked and utterly toneless, but happy at having her son home at last. "You're home. Hikaru was starting to make me worry about you as well."

"It's okay, mom," Kaoru said simply, allowing himself to be hugged by her. "It's not like I'd do something stupid that would get me killed."

"Oh, I know, dear. But sometimes we can't expect everything that'll happen." She smiled at him, and the shadows under her eyes and the stressed age marks around her mouth and on her forehead became more pronounced than ever. Kaoru also realized that his mother was much skinnier than she had been for a long time, but not in any healthy way. Indeed, it looked as if the female Hitachiin was working herself to death.

"Come in, dear. Come eat. Hikaru, call your father."

The elder of the twins narrowed his eyes, but went into the living room where his father was passed out, drunk, on the couch. Meanwhile, Kaoru gazed distastefully at the burnt and blacked chicken dinner his mother had prepared for the four of them, fearing to even lick the charcoaled skin save his tongue be dyed black from the soot. However, he sat at the small table and placed a leg on his plate while his mother retrieved two glasses of lemonade, one of water and a beer from the small fridge.

Dinner was…awkward to say the least. Mr. Hitachiin was in no mood to be awakened, nor participate in suck trivial routines as 'eating' or 'socializing with family'. He had drunkenly upset the table before smashing his half full drink on the tile before retreating back to the living room.

The twins and their mother had remained frozen in their chairs and half way onto the floor until the sound of loud snoring filled the small space and they deemed it safe to move without invoking his rage again.

"Here, mom, let me help," Kaoru offered, bending down to help clean up the broken plates and scattered food. Hikaru did the same and together, they worked in silence until the floor was cleaned. Kaoru stood and placed the broken dishes in the garbage before turning to pull another frozen dinner out of the ice box.

Mrs. Hitachiin simply sighed and turned in a whirl, exiting the kitchen and closing the door of her room with a silent click.

Hikaru blanched before crossing the room and standing next to Kaoru. He wanted to offer his warmth and comfort to his brother, wanted to hold him and for him to cry so that at least one of them could. But Kaoru just stood there, holding the container of food in slack hands.

The elder watched his twin with patience. Soon he would crack; he would break down and say how hard everything was and how he didn't want to do it anymore. Kaoru would cry and bawl about this time, this space and this life while he—Hikaru—held his brother and cooed, soothed and made everything better with empty promises. That was how it would always be but…

"I'm not hungry," was the only acknowledgement he received before Kaoru placed the frozen dinner into the freezer again and turned to follow his mother. Lunging after his twin, Hikaru grabbed the crook of his arm and pulled him back towards him. Kaoru started.

"What's wrong with you?!" Hikaru demanded, allowing his temper to get the better of him in Kaoru's absence of anger, sadness or anything else. Why was his brother so emotionless?

"What? Hikaru, you're not making any sense. Nothing's wrong with me. Why would you say that?"

"You're not normal!" The elder roared. He felt the hot pinpricks of tears behind his eyes but blinked the moisture away. "What happened to my baby brother? Why aren't you upset by that?" He motioned wildly at the room where their father's drunken snores still emitted from.

"What? I am!! Can't you see that?" Kaoru was yelling now, too. He made to wrench his arms from Hikaru's grasp, but found that he couldn't. Annoyed, Kaoru snarled under his breath, "Let go of me."

"Not until you tell me what's wrong!" Hikaru spat, extending the other hand to grasp his twins shoulder, as if to shake some sense into him. "Cry, damnit!"

"Why the hell should I? I cry when I have reason, and right now I'm too mad to!!"

"Just fucking cry!"

"NO!!"

"CRY!!!"

"NO!!"

With an unbidden and terrifying bout of unidentified emotion and strength, Hikaru practically threw his twin from him, causing Kaoru to fall backwards in a great arch. He landed hard on the ground and reached out a hand to break his fall, only to be cut across the palm by a stray and overlooked piece of glass from a lemonade cup. Flinching, the boy held up his arm, where blood welled sickeningly in the palm of his hand before dribbling through his fingers and splattering onto the floor.

Both boys remained frozen for a good few seconds, watching the red splatter against the white with a sickening fascination. Then Hikaru started forward.

"Oh my god, Kaoru," he whispered. "I'm…Oh shit, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean—"

The younger glanced up at his brother with a kind of look one often saw in wounded or dying animals before he scrambled backwards and stood up. He clenched his fist, and the part of the injury that extended over part of his wrist spurted blood onto the floor, peppering it even more. "Stay away from me," he hissed, eyes betraying the pain and shock he was experiencing at the moment. He took a shaky step away from his brother and cradled his arm to his chest as if it were his first child.

"Kaoru, I'm sorry! I swear, I didn't mean to hurt you." Hikaru extended a hand to lay on his brother's shoulder, and while Kaoru allowed him to do so, the elder of the twins could feel his brother's usually lax muscles tense under his touch. "Please understand that—"

"—I get it, alright, Hikaru," Kaoru said, his voice returning to monotone, with a slightly defensive bit in the background. "I get that you didn't mean it. Let's go to bed."

Kaoru turned and exited the room, his mind whirling with emotion and strangely, at the same time blank and void of all feeling. He was numb. Hand Hikaru just lost his temper with him?

Glancing after his brother and preparing to follow, Hikaru glanced at the kitchen floor, where vibrant magenta spattered against the off white floor. He cringed. He hadn't meant to hurt his brother: he's wanted to comfort him, after all. But Kaoru hadn't cried! He hadn't shown that he was still susceptible to human emotions such as fear and pain. Even after being cut, he hadn't screamed nor cried.

Hikaru sighed. At least the red that peppered the tile showed that there was still something in his brother's body keeping him alive: his heart. Yet as soon as he realized this, the elder of the Hitachiin brothers felt a pang of jealousy as he remembered that it was the mystery client who held Kaoru's heart: not him.


	6. Chapter Five

**I know what you're thinking! An update! FINALLY! Sorry for the long wait, I've been reduced to using random computers, and half won't take my flash drive XP Again, sorry! Happy reading!**

Chapter Five

Kyouya closed his eyes for such a long time that Haruhi thought he had fallen asleep and reached over to wake him, forgetting what a beast the Shadow King could be when woken before he chose to do so himself. However, she did not need to suffer the wrath of her client. Kyouya smiled and opened his eyes.

"Kaoru's cut wasn't serious, at least not physically, but it hurt him more than it should have."

"And, you attribute this minor cut as an interesting thing to share?" the brunette asked. She barely realized that her defensive and accusatory tone had abandoned her long ago in favor for a more curious and genuinely intrigued voice. As the web of lies and danger circled the Hitachiin boy further and further down the rabbit hole, Haruhi found herself more in depth and eager to see where the story came out. If it did at all.

"Yes, because it was that small accident that made him go back to working at that place," Kyouya said. "I'm not sure exactly why, of course, but Kaoru felt as if his life was coming to an end…Sadly, that was an accurate prediction, wasn't it?"

"Sadly," Haruhi agreed.

--

---

--

It was over. The battle between good and evil had been fought, the fat lady had sung, and all the 't's had been dotted and 'i's crossed. The hourglass that was his life was drawing closer to the last few grains of sand and the poison that was desire to sustain ones self was slowly shutting down his major organs. It was an infection that was eating him from the inside out and had no antidote. The only way to save one's self from drowning was by getting out of the water, but Kaoru was already too deep in to swim to safety.

And this conclusion was reached by the blood. The blood that flowed from a minor wound whenever he moved his wrist the wrong way or tried to form a fist. It was thick and hot and flowing freely over his hand, no matter how many bandages or pressure was applied. It never crossed Kaoru's mind that this wound was bleeding more than a normal wound might, nor that stitches might be a good idea, as well as medical salve. No, he decided that it would simply be much easier and much quicker to just let the pain envelope him little by little until it finished him off.

He was mortal. He was vulnerable at the hands of his own brother, the one person he had always been able to seek help in, as well as at the hands of others. The creepy man at the bus stop and Ootori Renge were viable examples. They had threatened him in a manor, and it was getting easier to see just how right they were. He was doomed. Red and black and guns and sex had condemned him to a life of danger and eventual death. Kaoru knew he was doomed.

Perhaps that was what lead him back to work. He figured, _If I only have so much time left, why not put it to good use and support Hikaru and mom and dad while I do it? It's not like they can do anything more to me than has already been done. It's not like I can feel much of what they do anymore…_

But that was a lie. He did feel it, but only with one person, and that one person seemed to be steering clear of the work place in light of recent events. Felling rejected, Kaoru figured he should have known better: to fall head over heels for an Ootori, who he had found via prostitute ring was a bad idea, but he couldn't help it if the man offered the first stable relationship in his entire life, nor if he craved the normality of being able to chose the people who did what to his body. It was, in all honesty, a sort of outlet for his pent up feelings and emotions, a break from being a toy to those who's faces he could never remember. It was a well earned vacation from constant worry and pain, but it was meaningless.

_Than why is it so hard for you to let go?_

Kaoru saw the man from the bus stop twice again, but Nekozawa steered of him by about a mile. He also seemed saner than that night, but he insisted on wearing that same black cloak at all times. Kaoru repaid his avoidance with the same favor, and never acknowledged his presence.

And so life went on. Ca Sera, sera and what not, and the earth continued to turn on its axis. Nothing of importance happened, that is to say until he returned home one night and found a small envelope on the front step of his house. It was a miracle no one had stolen it, and that the thing was still where it was. Curious, he slipped his finger under the seal and lifted the tucked flap to reveal…

The door banged open and Hikaru stopped short, narrowly avoiding collision with his brother in his attempt to escape the shouts and crying from inside the place they both called home. The elder of the twins blinked, as did the younger, and both stood like that for a millisecond, just staring at each other.

"Hika—What are you doing?!?" Hikaru had grabbed his brother by the crook of his arms and thus proceeded to drag him backwards, down the small walk way, and through the gate. Here, he let go of his twin and began to walk back the way his brother had come from, towards the bus stop. Startled, and more than a little put off, Kaoru looked after his brother and shouted, "Hikaru, what the hell?"

"Don't go home yet, Kaoru," Hikaru warned him, his tone stiff with pent up anger and frustration. "You really don't want to go in there yet."

Needless to say, this just made him all the more curious and suspicious. Jogging slightly, the younger of the red heads caught up to his brother and planted both feet securely in front of his mirror image, crossing his arms and a way that demanded, yet still asked. "Hikaru, where are you going?"

"No where, mother," the elder sneered with disgust dripping from his voice. Kaoru took no offense at his tone: it was obvious that the disgust was self intended. If anything, it only softened the hardened lump that was his heart. Kaoru reached for his twin.

"Hikaru, what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Bullshit. Tell me."

"It's nothing, Kaoru."

"I'm your twin, Goddammit!" he cried, stamping his foot and grabbing Hikaru's shoulder. It was a bizarre repeat of what had happened two nights ago, but now the tables were turned. "I know when you're lying to me."

Hikaru opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, as if searching for just the right words to communicate what he was feeling. He'd never been good at this: Kaoru was the first to talk, and had always been better at asking for juice or cookies than he had when they were younger. In fact, it had often been the younger twin who interpreted Hikaru's own wants into an understandable language for their mother. Now came one of the times that his voice evaded him. Hikaru ground his teeth and looked away.

"Hikaru," his voice was calmer now, more understanding. "Tell me. Please. It hurts me when you're like this."

There he went again! With his incomprehensible ability to clarify his emotions into words, even when Kaoru himself felt as dead inside as a corpse did. He gazed into matching amber eyes as Hikaru looked at him again before pulling his brother tightly against himself. The hug lasted for who-knows how long, and when they finally released each other, thick and hot trails of tears were streaming from the elder's eyes.

"I'm...I'm not supposed to feel like this," he said shakily, biting his lip to keep from sobbing and diverting his gaze towards the frosted ground. "It's you who's the weaker one; the younger one. It's not supposed to be me who cries. It's not. Boy's shouldn't cry in the first place, but it's alright with me when you do, as long as I'm there to help you."

Kaoru reached a hand out to wipe a single tear from his twin's eye before reaching out with the same one to grasp his brother's hand. So this was what the incident in the kitchen had been about. Hikaru needed release.

"At school, at home and everywhere in between, it was _me_ helping _you_," he moaned quietly. "But I couldn't help you recently. When they hurt you, when they do that stuff to you, I can't do anything. You won't talk about it, and I'm never there for you, Kaoru. I died a little that night when you were ra…initiated. It took every bit of my self preservation to stop from crying then and there. And now, I can't stop."

It occurred to the younger twin that he should say something right about now, but words were for not. He wasn't used to being on this end of the comforting, and simply settled for brining his brother's hand up to his mouth and gently kissing one of the knuckles. It was a comforting gesture, but this caused Hikaru to simply tense more and the tears to fall faster.

"This is my fault," he choked. "All my fault—"

"—Hikaru, I agreed to do this. I can handle more than I let on." It was supposed to be light hearted and the kind of statement one could allow a watery chuckle to escape after. But it had no effect.

"Mom always called you the baby, or called me the baby when she thought I was you," he said morosely. "She was right. Kaoru, you're my brother. My _baby_ brother and I couldn't protect you."

He was not a baby. It was on the tip of his tongue to say so when Hikaru reached up his free hand to rub both eyes vigorously. The action distracted Kaoru and he held his tongue. Hikaru sniffed again and shook his head.

"I feel childish saying this, brother," he sighed and finally looked up. His eyes were astonishingly amber at the moment, and the lids were slightly puffy and red. A stray tear ran, un stopped, down his cheek and nestled into the collar of his light coat. "But I have to say it: Kaoru, I fucked up. Big time…"

"—No you didn't—"

"—And I'll do anything, _**anything**_, to make it up to you. Please remember that."

--

---

--

It was dark in the hotel room. No lamps, no lights, no candles. The overhead light was off and the only sign of life in the room was the steady breathing of the man in one of the double beds. If one watched closely with a flashlight, they would be able to see the heavy rise and fall of his chest and the tired bags under his eyes. Ootori Kyouya looked as if he hadn't slept in a month.

The sound of a key card swiping and the door being pushed open didn't even rouse him, nor the clatter as a pair of clumsy feet knocked over the dinner trays. However, the owner of the feet froze, and as did the feet's twins. Both sneaker clad boys even stopped their breathing in order to make sure the man in the bed kept on sleeping. And sleep he did.

Sighing and chuckling quietly, Kaoru turned to Hikaru, who was marveling at the expanse nature of the hotel room. It wasn't the bridal suit, but it was extensive and richly decorated.

"Wow…"

"Like what you see?"

"Yeah…I mean, this is actually nice. It's not…he's not fucking you in some bathroom stall or anything…And he actually ordered you dinner?"

Hikaru lifted the plate cover off of one of the plates he had not caused to fall to the floor and marveled as an exotic mixture of scents assaulted his senses. "Since when did you like garden salad and rare steak, Kaoru?"

The younger shrugged. "Since Kyouya made me try some of his. It's really excellent, Hikaru. Try some!"

He did. It was perfect; a melt in your mouth mixture of meat and juices, gravy and salt. If someone was ever able to package the taste and quality of this meal, he or she would be able to rule the world under its influences. It would be a form of ambrosia and served in the halls of kings and presidents.

"Good, ne?" Hikaru jumped. Kaoru had removed his shoes and jacket already and was walking back towards him to share the meal. Smiled at the reaction he'd gotten from his brother, and—with a well accustomed air—sliced the steak in half and started to work on the one closest to him.

They ate in silence, Hikaru's eyes roving as fast as they could without missing a single detail. His mind was working at a furious rate in order to comprehend exactly what kind of situation his brother was in whenever he spent the night away from home. Perhaps they hadn't been all bad…It would all depend on the Kyouya person and how he was when they woke him in the morning…

"Not planning anything devious, are you?" the younger twin asked suspiciously as he spotted a smirk playing on his brother's features. "Hikaru, please don't do anything stupid."

"Kaoru," he purred, the hint of mischief playing in his tone, "Does this guy know that you have a brother?"

"What, yeah!" Kaoru said, slightly confusedly. "I talk about you all the time. Why?"

The smirk widened in an almost comical way and Hikaru's voice dripped with barely contained excitement. "Does he know we're identical twins?"

--

---

--

"So he came to your hotel room?" Haruhi asked, pen in hand again and jotting across the legal pad with a frantic haste. She hadn't realized she was falling behind in the notes. Thank god for tape recorders. "And you were asleep? Was anyone else in the room at the time?"

Kyouya shrugged. "I don't know. I was asleep, Haruhi, and if you remember, my sleeping patterns haven't changed. If there was anyone else in the room, Kaoru would have known well enough to keep them quiet."

Type AB blood. The devils way of saying 'I'm not a morning person'.

The lawyer rolled her eyes. "Did you see anyone when you woke up?" she asked again, trying to wheedle a more precise and less dense answer out of the man across from her. She knit her brow with determination and felt her finger nails pick at each other under the table.

Kyouya, however, took his time answering, examining his nails again for ample effect before drawling out, "Noooooo….No, he didn't."

--

---

--

The first thing that Ootori Kyouya noticed when he first woke up was that he was not alone in his bed. No, there was a small, warm and somewhat maple syrup scented someone curled up next to him, face nuzzled into his back and one hand holding his arm. The red head was breathing softly and his warm breath ruffled the hair on the base of the brunette's neck. The older man grinned predatorily and rolled over so as to lean down and place a single, light brush of a kiss on his lover's forehead.

Kaoru grumbled slightly and shifted. Careful not to wake him up fully, Kyouya rose from the bed and gently detached the red heads grip from his arm before stretching fully. He felt his back crack and his muscles whine in protest to the ritual, but ignored them. The bitingly cool air was refreshing against his skin, as well as merciful! It was cold, even in a five star hotel suit. But, it was winter. What could one expect?

Crossing to the other side of the bed room, Kyouya quietly unlatched the bed room door and slipped into the slightly warmer living room area, which was attached to the small kitchen. White marble gleamed in the weak and wintry sunlight that swept in through the bright and big windows. The room was silent and the man reveled in the quiet, a drastic change to what he was used to.

The hustle and bustle of the work place was the main reason that had driven him to Kaoru. That and the drunken and emotional status of his wife and the constantly judging demeanor of his father and the constant rivalry between himself and his brothers. Judgment, medicine, contests and stupid secretaries that could never file paper work right just got in the way, and heightened his already exceedingly high blood pressure till it was almost unbearable. But this…

This was nice. This was an abyss of peace and sex and pleasure and what could only be described as happiness, even if he did have to sneak around like a dog to get it. Even if he did have to lower his standards so much so as to enter a whore house and find Kaoru. Even if he had to listen to that annoying shower head spray water in the bathtub.

Wait…the water spray from the shower?

Glancing behind himself, Kyouya noticed that the door was still closed, making it impossible for Kaoru to have snuck out of the room and into the bathroom without him having heard the commotion. That, coupled with the fact that there was no one else was staying in the room, left Kyouya with two possibilities: either he was crazy, or there was someone else in the room.

His eyes narrowed under the thin sheets of glass as he walked purposely towards the bathroom door and reached out to take the door knob. He stopped as he heard the sound of the water stop and the shower curtain being pushed back, and then retracted his hand, figuring it better to wait for whoever it was to come out; if there was going to be an altercation, it'd be better that it be on his turf and where he had the better stance. Strategy! That was what it was all about.

And sure enough, it worked. With a strangled yell and a thump, he had the trespasser trapped against a wall and his full weight pinning the assalent's wet hands to the door.

"Who are you," he said darkly, his face a full foot from the mystery person's own and his eyes narrowed into slits. "Who are you and what are you doing here? Are you a newspaper reporter—"

He froze, realizing just who he was looking at. Kyouya's mind did a couple rewinds and replays until he was sure that his eyes were actually telling him the truth. He straightened and released the red head's damp wrists in favor of stepping back and looking at the wet boy. "Kaoru?"

An eyebrow was raised in response and he found himself second guessing his assumption, even if there was no reason to do so. A smirk curled Kaoru's lips, a type of smile that Kyouya had never seen before on the face of his lover and immediately knew he had made a mistake.

"Kaoru?" he asked, more warily. He knew it wasn't right. No matter how much this boy looked like the red headed one sleeping in his bed, it was not. He simply called him that for lack of anything better.

"Guess again, Kyouya," the boy said, his tone a degree happier than Kaoru's and several more so teasing. "I'm Hikaru," he said, extending a hand. "You know, Kaoru's big brother. So, you're the man that's been fu—"

Kyouya's own eyebrows shot into his bangs and stayed there as Hikaru cut himself off and grinned even more devilishly at him. Ah, so this was Kaoru's brother. He'd known about him, sure, but when the younger boy had said they looked scarily alike, he had taken it for granted. He hadn't expected them to be identical twins.

Either way, he extended his own hand and shook the red heads. "Pleasure to meet you, Hikaru-san." This only proved to further Hikaru's enjoyment of the situation. He was practically beaming.

"Damn, man. You make me feel unpolished and practically rural when you talk like that," he laughed. "Why not just say 'hi, I'm screwing your brother. Let's not tell each other intimate details about Kaoru'. That would go over much better with my breakfast."

"Alright," Kyouya agreed, his tone measured and composed. "Let's not discuss sexual and sibling encounters we've both had with your twin brother. I am Kyouya, and that is all you need to know about me. All I need to know about you is that you are Hikaru, and you are Kaoru's twin brother."

Hikaru pulls his hand out of the firm hand shake and nodded slightly, still smirking. He brushed past Kyouya and walked into the greater expanse of the living room before picking up a set of cloths that was on the couch and returning to where Kyouya was standing. It was then that the brunette realized that the other Hitachiin twin was clad only in a towel that was rapidly slipping down his hips. Hikaru seemed to notice this too, for he hitched them up before making a little moving motion with his hand. "Please move, Kyouya. I kind of don't like being in your presence naked, thanks. I don't know why, something along the lines of 'you' 'my brother' and 'fucked'. Sorry."

He did so, concealing his surprise and a deeper emotion that would have left his cheeks to turn pink in his school days, but was now known as simply odd. Hikaru grinned and walked past him, closing the door and reemerging some three minutes later, rubbing something between his hands and using it to spike his hair. The red head walked back the couch and flopped down as if he owned the place.

Curious, Kyouya sat opposite him in a white recliner to match the sofa. He stat up straight while the Hitachiin slouched and lolled. "That's some great hair stuff they have in the bathroom," Hikaru commented. "I didn't know hotels stocked hair gel."

"They don't." Kyouya said shortly, a glimmer of what he thought the boy was using flashing through his mind. He felt a small smile tug on his lips.

"Oh really?" Hikaru contradicted, sounded both condescending and actually curious. "Then what was in those little bottles labeled 'Sexy Sheik: With strawberry scent'?"

"Lubricant."

Hikaru's face contorted and his mouth gapped before turning into a sneer of disgust. He stood and walked back towards the bathroom, where the sound of running water was soon heard again. Kyouya watched him, smirking with a smile to match that of the Hitachiin's and began to chuckle softly as he heard the boy start swearing in the shower.

"Oh, you met Hikaru?" he heard a slightly softer and sweeter voice say from behind him and he turned to see Kaoru, clad in pants and trying to find the neck hole in his t-shirt. He was not having much luck in his exhausted state, and Kyouya figured that he should probably assist him.

Standing, he simply took the shirt gently from the red head's grasp and pulled it lightly over his hair, placing a light and what some would describe as chaste kiss on the red heads brow. Kaoru smiled and seemed to purr before his arms were forced lightly through the appropriate holes.

"You know, my brother always takes at least forty minutes to shower…" he murmured suggestively, nosing Kyouya's collar bone through the older man's shirt and sighing. "We could…"

"I don't think so, Kaoru. I'm pretty sure that your bother just used the last of a certain item we need to do what your suggesting, and this is shower is just to get it out."

"Oh?" Kaoru asked, surprised, before disentangling himself from the brunette's grasp and spinning away. He smiled and knocked on the bathroom door.

"FUCKING LUBE!!" was his only response. Kaoru smirked again before pushing the door open and closing it behind him.

Kyouya watched them and just then, he formulated a mental calculator. No merits. Just the variables. They didn't add up, but other calculations pushed their way though—those calculations of the everyday world that forced Kaoru to the edge of his mind. He didn't want the red head there, no he deserved front and center, but it was…just not working. Not really.

Leaving several bills on the table for Kaoru and Hikaru to use as they pleased, he left the room, closing and locking the door behind them and checking the room out for twelve o' clock that day. Hopefully, the twins would be out by then.

--

---

--

Kaoru giggled as he sat down on the toilet seat in the fogged bathroom and whistling. "Hikaru," he drawled lightly, not even trying to contain the laughter and humor that crept into his voice, "What were you doing with my strawberry flavored—"

"—SCENTED!!" His twin yelled, disgusted and vigorously rubbing his head under the turbo spray. He yelled several obscenities before he hit the wall and punched the shower curtain. "That's disgusting!"

"Actually, I find it kind of funny, but we really've got to go. Come on, man. We can go home now; mom's at work and dad always goes out to the bar this time of day. We've got a good…hour or three before I have to go to work."

Silence, or almost silence reigned. The water from the shower pattered continuously against the marble of the tub, but both twins were quiet. Finally, sighing, Hikaru reached down and turned off the hot spray of water. He pushed the curtain aside and grabbed a towel off the rack.

Kaoru got up from his spot on the toilet seat and began to draw on the fogged up mirror with his little finger. He smiled ruefully as he drew a small heart with two 'K's on either side of it, as well as a smaller 'H' under the 'K' on the right. He jumped when he felt his brother's hand on his shoulder and smiled benignly over his shoulder at him.

"Generally, I like this Kyouya guy," Hikaru admitted, blushing to the tips of his ears, but also grinning as he stared at the ground. "I don't see why you like him, but I think he's…"

It was more of what Hikaru didn't say that made his little brother snake one arm around his shoulders and give him a swift, one armed hug.

"We should probably go," Kaoru realized, his tone suddenly withdrawing and sounding guilty. He smiled sheepishly at his twin before exiting the bathroom and leaving Hikaru to get dressed. The elder of the Hitachiin twins watched his brother go with his eyes before turning to the mirror and wiping the heart and letters off of it's surface.

--

---

--

Two police men tapped their boots impatiently at the front desk of the hotel, waiting for their patrons to return with the list of rooms and the keys they asked for. One, an extremely tall and well muscled man, looked down to his partner, a shorter, blonder and more childish man, but none the less muscular. They shared a look, clearly stating that this was the place.

Grinning with predetermined triumph, the short of the two extended his arm to ring the bellhop bell once again and, almost immediately, a frazzled looking woman appeared. She handed over the keys to three separate rooms, along with the papers that the two needed to sign in order to have those keys, both of which were signed. Both men turned their back on the woman and walked towards the elevator, a type of ever present purpose in their step.

--

---

--

The twins could smell cops a mile away, and in the next moment, they both knew that there were at least two, less than a single mile away from them. Hikaru stiffened and Kaoru looked around hurriedly, trying to find a way out. His eyes settled on the storage and the two only just managed to dash towards it and allow the door to close behind them before the elevator bell dinged and the doors slid open.

"Hikaru," Kaoru breathed, his eyes glued to the small strip of the hallway he could see from between the door and latch. "Why are they here…Oh god, they're going into the room."

The elder of the twins elbowed his brother out of the way gently and took up his spot, watching as the shorter of the police men pulled out a card key and swiped it to open the door. He found it rather odd that the taller man stayed outside of the door, and also a bit irksome: there was now no way they could escape the hotel unnoticed. The only thing there was left to do was to wait them out…

"Kaoru," he said quietly, holding a finger to his lips and then moving slightly so that the younger got a clear view of the hall as well.

They watched. And waited. And waited. And waited. And watched.

Finally, the short blond reemerged, pulling latex gloves off of his hands and tossing them into the nearest trashcan. He dug in his pocket for a second before presenting the taller of the two with a sealed envelope and a couple small, sealed plastic bag. Hikaru and Kaoru saw them at the exact same time, and the bottom fell out of both of their stomachs.

"You left something!?!?" Kaoru said in a murderous whisper.

"I didn't mean to!!" Hikaru insisted, holding up his hands to placate his brother. With his left, he reached down to pat his pockets and, dismayed, found them to be empty. "I swear I didn't mean to! I thought I had them on me."

The younger rolled his eyes and tried to stem his anger, instead craning his neck to get a better view of the police officers. Quietly, he heard the shorter say to the taller, "I found some ecstasy in the folds of the couch, and the bathroom's still fogged up. If we're right and the runner boy is here, he should still be close. Did you see anyone?" his voice was childish, but the gun in his belt dispelled any thoughts the twins might have had that they were dealing with anyone younger then twenty-five.

"No," the taller said, his voice deep and low.

"That's funny," the shorter man said. "The mole swore on his mother's life that at least one of the curriers was here…"

Kaoru shot a glance at Hikaru. Someone had seen him, or rather one of the two of them anyway. Hikaru returned the glance apologetically.

After a couple more quiet murmurings, the shorter of the two mentioned something about cake and they both began a slow decent down the hallway towards the closet. Hikaru hurriedly pushed backwards from the door, successfully obscuring himself and Kaoru from the sightline of the cops, and also successfully flattening Kaoru between a broom and his older brother's back.

Biting his lower lip in frustration and pain, the younger of the two twins fought hard to remain silent as the footsteps of the two adults neared. Why were they even walking this way? The stairs may be here, but weren't cops fat pigs who were more interested in eating doughnuts and doing as little as possible? Well, the elevator was the other way and there was no other exit for the two Hitachiins to escape should they be discovered.

Hikaru felt Kaoru's breath quicken and took a split second to glance behind him just as the footsteps became loudest. Big mistake.

The door flew open with a crash and before the twins could even say as much as 'help!' the muzzles of two guns were trained on them and the cops behind them were glaring at the two over the handles. His reflexes trained from so many run ins with the police in his admittedly short career of a drug runner, Hikaru jerked, his chest muscles tense and his shoulders squared. He leapt forward, one hand tightly wrapped around his twins wrist and dragging Kaoru behind him.

The arm of the larger cop caught him in the middle of the chest, knocking the wind out of Hikaru's lungs and knocking him off his feet. Both twins landed with an awkward crash on the floor, the younger getting crushed between stone and his brother for a second time.

"We were right, Takashi," the shorter of the cops said lightly, reaching into his pocket, rattling two pairs of handcuffs in front of their faces. "Now put your hands behind your back and lay face down on the floor."

No one moved. "_Please_ put your hands behind your back and lay down. Don't make me ask you again."

It was then that Hikaru's tongue seemed to unglue itself from the roof of his mouth. He sneered, yanking both hands away from the brunette cop—Takashi, he guessed—and leered, "Why should we. You can't make us."

"You're under arrest, Hitachiin. Now put your hands behind your back. We're going to bring you in and put you in the slammer. Both of you."

"I—I haven't done anything!" Kaoru objected, glancing towards Hikaru. "Neither of us did! What are we under arrest for!?!"

"Be quiet now," the blond said soothingly, almost like he was talking to a three year old. It wasn't purposefully demeanor, but it still came off as so. "We have to go downstairs, and if you're good, we won't cuff you until we get to the car, alright?"

Hikaru looked like he was going to object, but a swift elbow in the side from his twin successfully shut him up. He glared at his twin, anger misdirected and flowing freely behind his eyes. Kaoru glared right back a secret message encrypted in his gaze. He only hoped Hikaru would pick up on it before they got downstairs.

"Alright," Kaoru said for his twin, looking at the cops. "Alright, we'll go…"

Both of the red heads stood shakily, their knees knocking together like jelly despite their efforts to keep the wobbly demeanor at bay. Hikaru glanced sideways, eyes begging an answer for Kaoru's agreement to the cops wishes. He got none.

Triumphantly, the two police officers—Takashi and the shorter one—roughly grabbed the younger boys by the crook of the elbows and began the slow and struggling pathway towards the elevator. Officer Takashi was escorting Hikaru, and found himself wishing he had cuffed the boy; at least he wouldn't be jerking his arms this much. Eventually, the small group found themselves in the small, compact box that curried them between floors, the gravity affecting their stomachs. It was seemingly useless, so Hikaru stopped struggling and allowed his shoulders to slump in defeat. Kaoru obviously didn't understand the importance of running away from the police, else they wouldn't be here—what would mother say? If this was something serious, would there even be enough money to bail them out? Probably not. And if word of this got back to those in the Underground, both of them were out of a job.

An overhead bell dinged, announcing the arrival of a lower level. The doors slid open and the hustle and bustle of the lobby washed upon them. And then Kaoru ran.

Well, more accurately, he wrenched himself out of the slackened grip of the shorter officer and snatched Hikaru's wrist, successfully tripping up the taller cop in their hurry to book it. Several couples turned to stare as the red headed duo brushed past them, pushing over luggage and accidentally tripping a small child, which resulted in her falling over and screaming for her mommy.

Elated at the close call, neither Hikaru nor Kaoru took the chance to turn back, but once they reached the third alleyway from hotel front and dove into it, they collapsed. Their thin frames were not built for running long distances, but the current conditions made it an even hard to run short distances.

Kaoru bent double, panting and clutching the stitch in his side, a silly grin spread across his face. "You….you actually thought I wasn't going to fight back, didn't you?"

Hikaru slumped against the wall of the alley, disregarding the grim it transferred onto his already filthy shirt and clean hair. An identical grin spread across his face as well. "Yes," he swallowed thickly. "Yeah, for a second there, I did. You've gone soft, Kao-chan, I didn't know what you'd do."

They lapsed into an uneasy silence, straining their ears for the sound of cop cars in the distance. Nothing was really audible over the pounding of blood in their heads, but the general fading of sirens in the distance as it grew fainter was enough to set both of the Hitachiins at ease. Hikaru leaned back and brushed sweaty bangs out of his eyes. "Kaoru…"

"Yes?"

"That was close. Don't ever do it again."

**Whoot! If you like it and you know it give a review! If you like it and you know it give a review! If you like it and you know it and you really want to show it if you like it and you know it give a review! I brought in some of the other characters! Yay me!**


	7. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

There were two new girls when Kaoru returned to work on Saturday. Both were tall—one blond and one a dark brunette and both with blue or grey eyes. The blond one looked scared, her blue eyes wider than what would be considered normal behind the thin frames of her dark blue sunglasses and lips pressed thinly together. She didn't look native, blond was not necessarily native to Japan, but she was pretty. Her flat stomach was accented by something that was called "the Pages Collar", a dark red belly dancer uniform that was generally just a red, plaid-printed bikini that every newcomer had to wear. It was her mark as a beginner, and a discriminating factor. Poor girl.

The second one was different. She had dark brown hair and pale grey eyes, narrowed in malice and power. Her clothing was dark black, and it resembled a suit more than skimpy clothing. Well, if you considered black leather pants and a plastic black zip-up turtle neck to be a suit. Her bulky black belt held three things: a cell phone, handcuffs and…a gun. Since when were the prostitutes allowed to carry guns…unless…

Kaoru crossed the main floor to the back room, which was more alive in the early morning light than the other room was. He coughed, overwhelmed by cigarette smoke, perfume and the overpowering smell of sweat and sex. It was hot in the back room, and the loud and somewhat rowdy talk of the girls and boys as make-up flew and stories were swapped. The red head immediately spotted who he wanted—the one person who knew almost everything about this place.

"Kanako—did we get a new overseer?" Kaoru asked, elbowing his way impolitely through the sea of bodies and clothing. "Who's the leather-lady?"

The brunette with the short brown hair blinked, looking up from the boy she was smothering in makeup. Smiling with her trademark seductive smile and continuing to apply the rouge to a boy that Kaoru recognized as Suzushima, she answered, "Oh yeah! Didn't you hear; the boss had him shot or fired—something, anyway—yesterday. Something about him hassling the clients AND us!! Yeah, he was a real pig and apparently that's something not tolerated around here. So the snake-faced leather-lady out there took his place." Kanako snorted. "This ought to be interesting, won't it? I've heard Ayanokoji is a real bit—"

Everything got quiet ever so suddenly and as the chatter gradually died down, the younger of the Hitachiin twins turned his tired eyes towards the door. There was the leather lady, and what was more, she had the new girl—the one in the Pages Collar—by the upper arm. Pages-Collar looked like she wanted to slap Ayanokoji, but just couldn't quite bring herself to do it. Shaking her slightly, the new overseer glared around the room.

"Who's going to show her around." It should have been a question, but it wasn't. No one said anything, quietly testing the new woman in power. Her eyes hardened and, for some reason, Kaoru figured she was a very competitive person—the type who'd do almost anything to show her power. "You."

Oh damn…

"You're talking to her, right?" Kaoru asked, pointing to Kanako. The brunette snorted.

Ayanokoji said it again—slowly and deliberately. "You—red head! Show her the ropes."

The Hitachiin sighed. He remembered…_vividly_…when he'd been shown the ropes. Somehow that act had gotten the last overseer killed. Kaoru grinned, wolfishly. He pushed off of the mirrored countertop and lazily strolled over to the two new girls. Up close, the Pages Collar looked dirty and rumpled, nasty white splotches on the chest. He sneered. "Welcome to hell," the boy greeted, remembering what the others had said to him on his first day.

The overseer released the new girl and removed herself from the room—immediately the dressing hookers began to talk again, although their topics of conversation had shifted from various things to the actions of Ayanokoji. Kaoru flipped his hair in contempt, looking the new girl square in her sun-glassed eyes and winking.

"I meant what I said, Page," he drawled, waving goodbye to Konako without even looking at her. "Welcome to hell. What's your name?"

She looked like she didn't want to say it, biting her lip and narrowing her eyes. They were startlingly blue—bluer than he'd originally thought. Pigment-less foreigners. "Éclair."

"Nice. People call me Kitten. What's your real name?"

"Éclair." She insisted, and this time Kaoru caught the accent.

"French?" he remarked, nodding slowly and pushing her out of the door. "Nice. The only thing I can say in French is…well, kind of sick. So, I'd get used to speaking Japanese—and get rid of the accent. It'll be bad for business. Also, we only have one main rule that you need to worry about: Don't deny a customer." He grinned cheekily and remembered how good it had been when he hadn't denied Kyouya. It had been nice.

"…Who are you?"

"Call me Kitten. Everyone else does."

"But…" she struggled for a second, looking around. "I…I don't understand… Who are you?"

Kaoru shrugged. If this girl was going to be purposefully dense, then so be it. "My name's Kaoru, okay? But around here, you can call me Kitten. It doesn't matter either way."

Lights were beginning to strove in the main room, even though the fact that it was still reasonably early in the morning ruled out the idea of any possible customers. The "Show" was about to start and the audience seemed to sense it. There was a sudden rush and then everyone was gathered in the main room, lounging at the bar, next to the door, on the sofas and everywhere in between. Half of them (mostly the men) surrounded Kaoru and Éclair, closing in and leering. Kaoru smirked.

"What….what's going on?" the French girl asked sharply, attempting to gain control of her surroundings. She glanced this was and that, practically blind in the dark room behind her sun glasses, yet unwilling the take them off.

He didn't want to partake in this. It was bad enough when his own initiation ceremony had happened, and watching would only bring back memories. So, looking down, the boy forced a grin. "Just do what they want, okay?" he warned Éclair in a tone that could have been snide. "Have fun, okay?" And taking his chance with the first client that happened to walk in the front door at that very moment, Kaoru took his leave and elbowed his way through the surrounding circle.

--

---

--

Haruhi jotted down the name 'Éclair' on her legal pad, massaging her temples (_that name if far too familiar, _she though) and tapping her pen idly on the desk. "What's the purpose of telling me about the new girl?" she asked—a trace of fatigue in her tone.

Kyouya didn't smirk this time, but instead picked a spot in the table in a sort of mock imitation of his lawyer. "Her body was found the day after—naked from the waste down and beaten. She was strangled." He looked Haruhi in the eye with a gaze on intense in-scrutiny and boredom. "Every day, at least one prostitute dies and maybe their deaths are reported, but no one's ever punished. I don't understand why this particular…death stirs up so much trouble."

"Most of their deaths are a mix of exposure and drug overdose. There's also the usual suicide and—occasionally—there's a murder. If our M.E. ever find cause for suspect of fowl play, we take those cases very seriously. A rope was found around that girl in the park's neck, and the only transfer was her own epithelials. There was no reason to think she was murdered."

"Spoken like a woman with something to hide," Kyouya smirked, leaning forward and placing his elbows on the table casually. "You suspected it was murder, didn't you?"

A small red ting spread across her cheeks. "Even if I did, I don't get a say in the matter." She busied herself with the papers around her and extracted a single one from the case file, inspecting it carefully before asking. "There were…traces of Xanax in Kaoru's system… Did you give it to him? You do have unlimited access to medicine."

Kyouya nodded. "Yes, I did. He was having trouble sleeping, so—as a doctor—I prescribed him some. You can check my records at the free clinic. I spend very little time there, so it shouldn't be hard to find my records."

Haruhi nodded. "I'll do that. But until then…_Why_ was the boy having trouble sleeping?"

--

---

--

Hikaru did most of his business in the park. It was covered, full of people, varied and it was a good paypoint. He sold to a large variety of customers—from Americans, to Chinese; children to his elders; respected business men to the bottom of the barrel. The lot. The whole point of this operation was 'no questions asked', so when he received an order that was reason for him to go to the free clinic downtown, he did so with the slightest suspicion that he was getting himself into more than he knew.

Sure enough, when he took up a spot next to the designated dumpster behind the hospital, he was met a few minutes later by non other than…

"You?" he asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow and stomping on the lit cigarette he'd just thrown to the ground. He propelled himself off the side of the trash can and walked tentatively towards the man at the other end of the alley. "Listen, just because you're doing my brother doesn't mean we have any business together—got that? I don't like you, so fuck off."

"Ah," Kyouya said, jutting out an arm to catch Hikaru before he could storm past him. "I do have some business for you. Here." He thrust a small, white medical bag into the red head's hands—as well as a small slip of paper.

Hikaru studied them, opening the bag and pulling out an orange bottle of prescription pills. He popped the cap with expert ease and dumped half the contents into his ungloved palm. The red head snorted. "These aren't Tylenol," he deadpanned, slipping the small things back into their container and waving the white paper in the man's face. "Why does this say Tylenol when they're really Xanax."

The brunette smiled. "It's a good thing that your twin has someone looking out for him. I actually expected you to know the difference and to understand why something that would be harmless under any other circumstances would have the dosage directions of a powerful sleep aid." Kyouya dug into his breast pocket and produced a roll of dollar bills, all of which he pressed into the elder Hitachiin's hand. "I trust that will cover your fee."

Whistling, Hikaru shrived everything but the money into the bag and tucked it into his coat pocket before proceeding to lick his fingers and count out the cash. "Alright…" he said after his initial count of the money proved to me more than enough. "Alright, I'll do it. Who are these for?"

"Your brother."

"Forget it."

"What?"

"I'm not giving my baby brother any of the shit you deal with," Hikaru just about yelled, violently reaching into his pocket for the medicine. He shoved everything into Kyouya's hands and folded his own securely across his chest. "I've seen what can happen to people who get hooked on these, and I'm not gonna sit by while you play doctor with my brother's addiction system. Go. Fuck. Yourself—and leave Kaoru alone. He doesn't need any pills."

And the boy made to push past the man and storm away from one of his—then—least favorite people in the world. Cursing the Ootori in his head, Hikaru dug both hands into his pockets and froze, procrastinating as long as he could before whirling about. 'What does he need them for?"

A snake-like grin spread across the brunette's features and he extended the bag and money back out towards the mirror image of his lover. "He can't sleep. I figured I'd help. Your brother's stressed, so I figured I'd help him the best I could. Since I can't treat the cause—treat the symptoms"

Hikaru pressed a few fingers to his head before pointing them towards the man. "Don't talk to me in riddles, man. Just don't. Do you know something about my brother that I don't? You'd better tell me."

Kyouya shook his head and exhaled, a low curl of steam rising from his nostrils and mouth simultaneously. He looked from left to right as though searching for someone who was wire tapping this transaction. Hikaru's impatient tapping of his feet made this who thing a little irksome, but the man managed to keep his cool. "No," he confessed. "I don't know anything about your brother—he won't talk to me either, but I am paid to understand what's going on without anyone telling me or with someone lying to me. So—Hikaru, was it?—take this to your twin."

The elder of the twins glared, narrowing his eyes. "And how the hell do you expect me to believe that either of us should trust you. We were doing just fine before you came along. Why should I think you're not going to hurt him?"

This successfully shut up the older man. The folds of his suit rustled in the chilly wind as the sound of an approaching ambulance startled both of them. The sirens blared and Hikaru motioned towards the back entrance of the hospital—which stood open a tad.

"Shouldn't you get back in?" he asked blankly, proving Kyouya with an easy out. "Some fancy, rich…illegal prescription writing doctor like you should probably change out of that suit and save some lives—isn't that what you're paid for?"

"Wrong, Hikaru," Kyouya corrected, turning and striding back towards the propped open door. "I don't work here. I own the place."

The red heads mouth worked silently for a few seconds, shock evident in his face and eyes slightly boggled. "You—You're an Ootori?!?!" He called after the bespectacled upperclassman.

He got no response.

--

---

--

_Maybe…maybe something was wrong with Kaoru…_ Hikaru thought placidly, turning the pill bottle over and over in his hands and holding it up to the light. Sure enough, that was Xanax, enough for about a month's time and perhaps a little over.

_Who the hell does that doctor think he is…It's not like he can tell me there's something wrong with my brother! He doesn't know Kaoru as well as I do, even if Kaoru's virtually accepted him into our world—that still doesn't mean he has the right to tell me about my own twin…He had no idea!_

_But he sure seems to_, an unbidden voice in the back of the other twin's head.

Hikaru sat alone in his and Kaoru's room, bouncing idly on their bed and allowing his left hand to muss up his sheets while his right tossed the Ootori given medicine bottle up in the air and catching it again. He debated simply not giving the thing to his twin, but then…Kaoru would want to know why his brother was questioning his happiness because—yes—Hikaru was going to have a "heart-to-heart" with his brother about exactly why he needed the pills…

But…then…It was killing him! What was wrong with Kaoru! He needed to—

The front door creaked open in the other room, a signal that the younger of the Hitachiin twins were home. Hikaru caught the bottle once more and then froze in the dark, waiting…waiting….waiting… Until the bedroom door opened and the other twin stood, outline silhouetted by the backdrop of hallway light and looking tired.

"Hikaru?" he questioned, walking in and dropping onto the bed so as to sit next to his brother. "Why are you still up?" The elder didn't answer. "Hikaru?" the younger asked again, reaching out to brush a hand tiredly against his brother's. "Hikaru, what's wrong?"

"I should be asking the same question."

"What? Hikaru, you're not making any—"

"Kaoru, are you sleeping?"

This threw him off effectively, silencing them both and causing the younger of the two to look at his brother's hand, the one he had been stroking. The white end of a prescription bottle was sticking out from the O shape that Hikaru's pointer and thumb made, and then Kaoru caught on. "Did Kyouya give you that? That's the only reason you'd be acting so weird…"

"Why are you having problems sleeping?"

_Oh…Oh…_

Kaoru shuffled his feet before pulling them up to his chest and laying his head on his knees, red hair flopping with general fatigue. He sighed. "Yeah, yeah I am…"

"How long?"

"Three weeks; since I met Kyouya." He felt more than heard his brother stiffen beside him and hastened to add. "No, it's not him. It's more of that people generally hate it when you find someone secure and they tend to…" he flinched. "Hassle them."

_Oh…_ "Oh…" Hikaru relaxed, only to stiffen again. "What do they do?" he demanded.

"Nothing much," Kaoru insisted. "I swear. They just steal my cloths—drench them, and all of that. Sometimes they just take the best customers away from me, but they've never hit me or anything, so there's really nothing to worry about." He held up a hand to stay his twin's objections, and laying back. "Look, it's fine, Hikaru—_I'm_ fine."

"But—"

"I am!" Kaoru insisted, his voice getting a little louder than he intended. Both the boys froze as there was the sound of disrupted snoring from the room next to theirs. Kaoru looked to Hikaru and then down to the sheets as the regular sounds returned to the house. Suddenly, the younger of the Hitachiins looked woozy and allowed gravity to take care of the rest, his body bouncing on the mattress.

Hikaru startled. "Kaoru--!" His twin blinked open a bleary eye and tried to smile. He couldn't, but the general fact that he could move put the older of the twin's nerves to slight rest.

"Go to sleep, Hikaru."

"What about you?"

Kaoru paused. His eyes darted to the pill bottle that his brother was holding, then back up into a mirror set of amber eyes. Hikaru looked away; he didn't want to, and jumped when he felt his brother's hand on his elbow. Without words, the two knew what was going to happen eventually. He sighed and, without any gusto, shoved the bottle into his twins hand.

"Thank you, Hikaru," Kaoru said as his mirror image lay down next to him, and he popped the bottle top.

_Sleep…_

--

---

--

"So, you don't deny it?" Haruhi asked, jotting that down on the paper. Distastefully, she noticed that she'd reached the end of her first legal pad page. She folded it back and began on the new page, paying no attention to the indents of the pervious.

'Of course not," Kyouya conceded. "I told you it was me, and my reasons for giving him the drugs. How can I deny what I've already told you? Do you really think I'm that stupid?"

She bit her tongue to hold back a reply—one that would undoubtedly scathe and hurt—and busied herself with clicking the back of the retractable pen. "Alright, then. You still haven't told me anything of interest, Ootori."

"But you're not really after anything of interest, are you, Haruhi?" Kyouya asked softly, a smirk curling his lips. "You're just waiting for me to slip up in my story."

Her chocolate brown eyes narrowed. "I am not, Ootori."

He laughed slightly, a hollow sounding laugh that echoed. "Well, I guess you've caught me then. The girl who died—her name wasn't really Éclair. I just enjoyed watching you jump. Her real name was Leah, and the reason she had those opera glasses was lack of pigment in her light blue, American eyes. Interesting, isn't it? That I can take something so unrelated and bend it to fit the circumstances."

Her face fell. "You…you lied to me?"

"Of course."

"You…you…KYOUYA!!" Haruhi slammed her hand on the table and made to stand up, leaning over the table so that her face came within a foot of the brunette's. Her cheeks tinged ruddy pink with rage. "Kyouya, I'm only trying to help—I'm only interested in the little boy who you said you loved, and you're making this overly difficult for me by lying and—why are you smiling…"

Indeed he was. "You called me 'Kyouya', Haruhi."

She froze. Had she? Why yes, she had. Reverting to old and broken habits were never good, especially when those habits could tie you to a potential murderer. Haruhi sank, slowly, into her chair, smoothing her skirt and hair, praying to the gods (and her mother) to give her patience. _Shadow King…_

Kyouya gave her a smile that clearly said _Androgynous Commoner_.

--

---

--

The next morning was anything but laid back. A good night sleep—or more the ability to pretend to sleep under the influence of the muscle relaxors—had opened new sensory doors for Kaoru. He was now aware of things that had just seemed so unimportant when he'd been too tired to function. The sweaty clamminess from the numerous shots of adrenaline and orgasms made his skin crawl, the dingy light that filtered through the rooms shuttered windows woke him, and the sound of the garbage man doing his daily business. Vaguely, the red head wondered if the trucks had always driven these streets, only to figure that of course they had.

The sheets were mussed and tangled, taught around Kaoru's torso as only another figure in the blankets (hogging them) could cause. He startled for a second, wondering who he had slept with the night before and what they had given him for such an excellent downer. Then it came back to him; his brother had given him Xanax, and although it had been his twin who had given him the pills, it hadn't been for the sexual experience of screwing someone with corpse light tendencies.

Smiling slightly to himself, the younger of the twins skillfully disentangled himself from the sheets, having numerous experiences with waking up next to someone who was considered coyote ugly, and made his way to the shower.

Sure it was cold, dirty and cramped, but after seven minutes under the high pressure nozzle, one never felt dirty. However, that may be a given, what with the damaged nerve endings, hypothermia and allover chill. When his hair was thoroughly drenched, Kaoru took a moment to grope for the soap bar, only to remember that they didn't have one. He sighed, turning off the water and stepping onto the cold tile floor, the sensation more than enough to send a violent shiver up his already frozen spine.

He tried not to inhale the smell of sweat and sex when he put on the black and blue sweat shirt that doubled as a sleeper. Kaoru noticed, mutinously, how thin his waist was—his ribs acting like the shadows of a chain link fence, and his hips the dramatic shelves. It was a rather unattractive hourglass frame, portraying that he was anorexic or something similar. Sneering at his reflection in the mirror, the young Hitachiin examined his image very carefully, pulling the baggy clothing tightly around his midsection before letting it go: there was a major difference.

"Oh, you're up early," came a tired voice from the door frame. Kaoru paused and looked around, spotting his mother and waving slightly in place of a hello. She smiled—or rather, tried to, but the large bruise on her cheek at the split lip made it rather hard to do so. "You look like you've had your first good night's rest in a long time, Hikaru."

Kaoru didn't have the heart to tell her that this had been the first good nights rest he'd had, nor that he was not Hikaru. "Yeah, mom," he managed weakly instead. "I feel much better."

"Are you going to stay and have breakfast with your father and me? It would be just like old times, don't you think? Sitting around, eating, laughing, talking…" _Yelling, cursing, hitting, drinking…_

"No," Kaoru said, reaching up a hand to self consciously twirl his damp bangs around his finger. "No, I think I'm going to go out and take a walk…Thanks, though. And, mom, if Hi—Kaoru wakes up, will you tell him that I'll meet him at the downhill deli at lunch time, please?"

"Sure thing, sweet heart," the empty shell of the female Hitachiin replied, already drifting down the thing and narrow hallway towards the living room. In a matter of seconds, Kaoru could hear the sound of her light snoring and the rustle of the newspapers she must have fallen asleep on.

Be that as it may, he had been serious about that walk. The whole house smelled like mold and smoke, and it was a nasty display of peeling wall paint and broken furniture in the daylight. Perhaps some fresh air would do him good, so Kaoru hurriedly snuck back into his joint room and tore a piece of notebook paper from a notebook and penned a quick note to Hikaru, much saying the same thing he had asked his now incapacitated mother to relay. He managed to remember to grab a jacket before exiting the room with a quite click of the door closing, and even managed to sneak past the rest of the houses' occupants unnoticed.

Kaoru was a ninja.

The one thing about the Xanax—in warm weather, it was perfect on an empty stomach. In the biting cold of the winter season, it caused Kaoru's nose to run, which resulted in him sneezing violently. This seemed to be a key reactant for his gut to cramp slightly, complaining openly about the lack of nutrition in its depths and sending volt after volt of muscle seizures throughout his body. This made the younger of the red heads pause less than three blocks into his stroll, hunch over, and wretch dryly while leaning against a wall. Little to nothing came up in the first three go's, but on the third attempt in that spot, some milky white, putrid liquid forced it's way up his throat and out his mouth.

The Hitachiin straightened up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He hated throwing up as much as the next person, but to do it with nothing to throw up was disgusting and allover useless form of the discomfort. He hated it.

The vomiting left his knees weak and somewhat shaky from the aftershock, and, thinking it for the best, Kaoru sat a couple feet away from the initial site of the unpleasant reaction and decided to look to see where his feet had taken him. It was a site reasonably close to the bus stop he got off at after work; in fact, the place must only be a few blocks in one direction or another, and the building behind his back was defiantly familiar. Cold, stone brink pressed through the fabric of the jacket on the nearly deserted comfort shopper strip, the grocery store, baby boutique and post office alight, but with no friendly jingles that announced the entrance or exit of customers. It was sort of like a dead holiday card.

Kaoru's breath rose in a smoldering pillar above his head, doubling in quantity once he tried to stand again, feeling the sudden power sure in his knees and knowing it was now or never. He moaned lowly, but managed to stay balanced and aloft. "Gravity," he said darkly, "I have beat you again."

_Perhaps the park was open…_

He began to walk towards the general area that he knew an old children's school playground sat, rusting away, fighting the urge to whistle. It was looking to be a better day than most.

He heard it too late.

The general _taptaptap_ of a rapid walker, and the heavy breathing of someone who was working themselves up to do something drastic. Kaoru was about to turn to see exactly who else was out this early and why they were walking this way when something thick and heavy hit him square in the chest. The red head fell to the ground, coughing and feeling as if his lungs had burst open on contact.

There was a sudden pained pressure in his gut and two massive hands wound their way around his own ones, trapping Kaoru, defenselessly, against the pavement. He wanted to cry out, but couldn't—there was barely enough air in his lungs as it was to keep blood and oxygen flowing through his brain as it was! His head hurt, as well as the back of his eyes, and he was sure his back would re-bruise the markings he had had before. But more importantly at this time was the man who, was now pinning him with a deadly intent in his eyes.

"Whore!! You slut!! Do you know what you've done to me, you stupid harlot!!" If Kaoru had any question of who was doing this to him before, he didn't even have to open his eyes to realize that it was… "You've ruined me! You got me fired over some stupid and harmless harassment—and now you're going to pay, you stupid, fucking hooker!!"

It was the Ringleader.

_Oh no._

Fighting for his breath, the red head managed to gasp. "I didn't do anything! I don't even know why you were fired! Please—let me go! I'm begging you—"

"SHUT UP!!" Kaoru felt the cold sting on his cheek of being slapped, the pain emphasized by the cold and the ring that the man on top of him was wearing. He bit his cheek and felt his head fly sideways, smacking the pavement. "You shut up, you filthy little slut! I got fired because one of you said I fucked you when you didn't want it, and since I haven't screwed any of you whores, ever, it was a lie and only you would tell such a lie, Hitachiin."

Kaoru had no idea when this whole thing had moved to a alleyway, but as he looked around in dismay at the garbage cans and the stray alley cats, he felt a sense of impending doom descend upon him. The ringleader moved his knee to the side of the younger boy's thigh so that he was straddling him, keeping legs and arms effectively pinned as the red head struggled. He thrashed, groaning and gasping as every which way he turned was thwarted by the bigger, and considerably stronger, man on top of him.

"Get off! Please—I didn't do it! I didn't do anyth—"

"You think because you've got a rich fucking regular that you're better than us, don't you, but you can't help remember who you started with, can you! You're so high up their on your horse that you figure the Ootori can save you—bur guess what. He'll use you and deny any contact with you as soon as he gets a better wife. You should give it up, Hitachiin. Ootori doesn't love—he won't even fucking miss you when I'm done with you."

The boy felt his eyes grow wide and his pulse quicken as his movements became more irate and jerks. "L-let go! Please, don't kill me. I'll do whatever you want. Just don't hurt me." He had no idea what was coming out of his mouth—it sounded like gibberish, and it very well might be considering that the man had now moved both of Kaoru's wrists into one hand and had reached the other down to pull viciously on the buttons on his blue jeans.

"You think you're so pure and clean—I'll fucking ruin you." And he believed him.

Worming one hand free, Kaoru balled his fist and sunk it as hard as he could into the ringleader's gut, forcing the other man off him and leaving the boy with a harsh throbbing in his wrist. It felt broken.

Flipping over as fast as he could, Kaoru managed to get to his hands and knees before he heard the other man launching after him and left his body hit the disgusting pavement ground with the force of a bomb. His face ground in the cement for a moment before, swearing, he was forcibly flipped over.

"Try a stunt like that, and I'll cut your mother's throat," came the warning growl as the face of the older man came nearer and nearer to the younger. Kaoru felt his pants being unbuttoned and thrashed again. He would have kneed the other if his knee caps weren't pinned under the man's legs, and he would have hit him again if there wasn't a sense of foreboding that the second he could try, his neck would be broken and that threat on his mother's life would be made good.

Kaoru hated this. He could feel the other—hot and sweaty against him, moving and laughing lowly, like this was his fetish to rape sex slaves in an alleyway before killing them. The red head's stomached lurched again, and, for a second, it felt like he was going to chock on his own vomit—but the bile reseeded in his throat mercifully.

By now, his pants were worked down to his knees, and the ringleader was hoisting himself off Kaoru's lower half for a good few seconds. He curled into a ball, bringing up both knee's sharply into what could have been anywhere between the man's thighs and chest, before forcing himself to flip over again and make a run (or crawl) for the mouth of the alley way as a low moan sounded from behind him.

"YOU WHORE!!"

Kaoru's hand landed on a medium sized chunk of brink—the same color and general shape of the building they were behind—and without even thinking, turned just enough so that he was allowed by his position to hurl it at his attacker. That did little to nothing.

There was a sharp intake of breath on the Hitachiin's part before he curled up into a ball and felt his side suffer several series of rough kicks and one or two punched. His head was swimming and the man forced him onto his back once more, the body beneath him going limp and slack. He smiled triumphantly. "They said I fucked you—well, I didn't—so the crime might as well fit the punishment…"

His words were making no sense. Kaoru coughed as he felt two thick hands encircle his neck and bring his head off the pavement. A dark, threatening abyss of darkness was hovering around the corners of his eyes and the bile was rising in his mouth again; he wanted so much to be allowed to slip into that deliciously numb coma, but as the man lowed himself closer to the boy's ears, he couldn't.

"I'm going to get your twin, too, you whore. I will find him, and I will kill him and I will fuck him up, too. This will be double the fun."

The abyss froze—froze stark white and furious. "Don't…" Kaoru struggled, his tongue feeling leaden and weighted. "Don't you dare…fucking touch him!!"

And with one final heave and effort—the ring leader was thrown flat on his back and Kaoru sat bolt up right, ignoring every single pain he felt and propelling himself towards the end of the alleyway. And there, clear as day, was something that might have been akin to an angel.

There, garbed in a white overcoat and carrying a bag of bread, vegetables and other miscellaneous things from a grocery store, was a man. A man wearing a thick and puffy black cap that shielded his eyes from the wind, but failed to cover all of his bright blond hair. A man who paused for a second and turned when he heard something that sounded like an animal screaming for help. A man who's eyes narrowed underneath the cap when he saw a thin little red headed "child" reaching out a hand while simultaneously trying to throw off an oversized man.

"Oh my god…" he whispered to himself for a split second before dropping his bag of items into the soggy gutter without a second thought and taking a step forward.

--

---

--

"Yes, I get it, Ootori," Haruhi said exasperatedly. "You weren't the only one who wanted him dead."

"I didn't want him dead at all, Haruhi. You're reading far too between the lines. All of you people are, if you ask me. And with all due respect, aren't you supposed to be on my side. You are my lawyer, after all…" Kyouya offered her a cocked eyebrow and a quietly shared smirk.

"I have yet to form my opinion of you—as of now, I think you killed him, and I'm determined to get to the bottom of this. Now, if you don't mind, tell me what happened the day that the Hitachiin boy was almost raped…" She winced, mentally adding an 'again', to the end of that statement.

There was a chuckle. One that was really starting to piss the commoner off. She glared, but before she could snap out anything, Kyouya held up a hand and asked jovially. "He didn't tell you?"

"Who not tell me what?!" she demanded. There was a prickling sensation that ran along her back that she should have paid attention to, but the intensity of which she was focusing on the brunette's eyes was a little too much so to leave feelings for such trivial things as shivers. "What are you talking about?"

"And here he preached to us both to always be open with our daily events in high school. I remember that he wanted you to tell him how many dresses you discarded and how many companies I put out of business one day, but was so exhausted from the all nighter that he pulled, that the fool asked me how many dresses I had destroyed and asked you how many stocks you had tried on." He allowed himself another chuckle. "Epic times…And you he didn't tell you about saving a human's life while he went shopping…How interesting…Do you think that he told the daily events to his fiancée before the two of you became adulters and eloped?"

There was a tender and vivid blush upon Haruhi's cheeks, but she bit back a stinging response and gritted her teeth. "No…" she ground out. "Tamaki did not tell me about saving a prostitute from an upset pimp…Would you care to elaborate?"

A wolfish smile. "Don't I always fill in where he screws up?"

--

---

--

It was am angel, although it appeared to be nothing more than a man when Kaoru saw him up-close. A blond man, with slightly larger than normal, violet-blue eyes that spoke fathoms of detail and happiness. He seemed to be smiling a great deal for someone who had just beaten up a rapist and turned him over to the police. The red head wondered if he now expected something in return, and self-consciously made a fist around the button and zipper of his pants under the coffee shop table, intending to keep the two firmly in place for as long as he could without looking ungrateful or weird.

The blond man returned to their table with two steaming mugs of brown sludge and extended one out to place on a logo emblazoned coaster. Kaoru reached for it and was slightly surprised to see marshmallows floating in his drink. "Uh…excuse me…"

"Yes?" the blond man asked, an ancient French accent hidden well under many years of experiencing the Japanese cultures. "What's wrong?"

"Uh, nothing's wrong, sir…I was just wondering why you put marshmallows in your coffee…It seems a bit odd, I'd say."

"Odd?" the blond man echoed. "Coffee? Dear child, this is hot chocolate. Haven't you ever had it? It's quite popular—try some! It's delicious!!"

Kaoru was weary. His face hurt and smelling the drink too deeply hurt the side of his face that the ringleader had cold cocked him on half an hour before hand. The inside of his mouth hurt something awful, too, and whenever he tongued the cut on the roof, he could taste blood. Perhaps drinking this wasn't that good of an idea, but the open and expressiveness of the man's eyes almost made him want to.

Gingerly, Kaoru took a sip, eyes never leaving the other's, and ready to pull the cup away if he was given the slightest inclination that the other was lying to him. There was no lie: the chocolate was delicious and as soon as he started, he couldn't stop sipping—drinking it a little by little so as to savor the flavor, and texture. Somehow, the marshmallows made everything taste better as well.

By the time the red head lowered the cup again, only the dregs remained, as well as the violet gaze. The blond smiled and extended a hand over the table towards the boy. "I'm Tamaki."

"Kitten." Kaoru responded, shaking the hand before adding, unsurely, "But…you can call me Kaoru."

There was that damned happy smile. It made no sense. Who would be smiling? Why now? "Nice to meet you, Kaoru. Are you alright, by the way? That man worked you over pretty well—was it personal? He seemed to have it out for you, and I'm scared he would have killed you if I hadn't stepped in."

Amber gaze darted down and he allowed his dirty bangs to flop into his face. "He probably would have. I don't know his name, but I work with him…"

"Oh, you work!?!" there was a tone of childish curiosity that made Kaoru look back up at Tamaki with an incredulously look. "You're so young! Where do you work? Was he a colleague?"

Kaoru gaped. "…I guess you could say that I'm a…Host? Whatever you'd like to say about it. And…I guess you could say he was a disgruntled employee…I don't know how to explain this…it's a long story and my brother should be here soon."

"Oh, you have a brother? Lucky! I always wanted one, but I was an only child instead. Do you have any other family?" Tamaki was…odd. But in a nice way.

"I have a mother and a father. You?"

There was a childish smile to match his voice. "I have my father and my grandmother and my fiancée…Oh, and I have my mother somewhere, but I don't know where." His gleaming eyes never left Kaoru as he began to embark on what the Hitachiin was sure would soon become the blond's life story.

"Yeah…lucky…I wish I didn't know where my parents were…Did she leave you?"

A sudden, slightly deflated air sounded around Tamaki and he glanced away for a second. "Ah…no. I, uh, I left her so I could become the heir to my father's estate…But I regret it every day."

"You left her, then? Good for you…"

There was silence, in which Kaoru took the liberty of stirring his spoon around the bottom of his cup and licking the utensil one it had a reasonable chocolate coating while waiting for Tamaki to speak. Where was Hikaru?

"I guess you've had a rougher life than I have…I envy you…"

He was speechless for a second, then came back with a slightly croaked voice. "You…you what?"

"I envy your life experience…it seemed expansive if you think it's best for a person to be lucky to leave his family…You seem like a smart kid." There was nothing mocking or derogatory about his tone. It was just simple and understanding, and Kaoru suddenly felt eons away from this man in his fancy white coat and hat, while he sat there in his filthy clothing, mussed up hair and bruised face. There were some extreme differences between the two of them, but for a second, Kaoru understood Tamaki with an utmost respect.

The bell above the door jingled and, instinctively, Kaoru turned to see his twin entering the shop, looking around and waving happily for a second, his expression suddenly becoming serious when he saw his little brother's face. If this space were anymore cramped, Hikaru would have sent tables, chairs, papers and babies flying in his haste to get to his twin and talk to him. The look in his eye clearly said 'prepare for emergency hug landing' and Kaoru obediently stood up, putting his arms around Hikaru's neck and saying a quick hello.

They let go of each other and Hikaru turned to stare at Tamaki, his eyes guarded and defensive, almost as if he thought the blond had done this to his twin. Kaoru could feel his brother's hands bunch up, and hear the grinding of his teeth, and quickly extended a hand to calm him. Tamaki seemed to sense that he was the prime suspect as well, for he hurriedly made to stand an extend his cup of barely drunk hot chocolate towards the two of them. "Uh, here you go. I'm not really thirst and I must be going…" his cheeks were tinged a bit red, but that could be attributed to the cold. "Farwell, Kaoru…Mr. Kaoru's brother…"

"You talk like an ancient lord," Hikaru pointed out rudely, pointing and not accepting the cup.

Tamaki looked taken aback. "Ah…yes, I guess I do."

"Do you expect us to bow down and call you our lord? Do you expect us to worship you as such?"

"Ah…of course not…"

Hikaru blinked contemptuously. "Alright then…Goodbye, _my lord_…"

Tamaki looked confused. "Ah...goodbye…"

And he left before Kaoru could even murmur a quick 'thank you' under his breath, a chill wind floating through the door as he exited and the jingle accompanying him as he walked. The twins watched him go, Kaoru tenderly detaching his hand from his twin's death drip and taking the cup that Tamaki had placed back on the table when he had placed the money down for the tab. He sipped it quietly as Hikaru watched the retreating white-coated back of the blond until he was out of sight.

"Kaoru…Who the hell was that and what was he doing to you."

Kaoru paused, his lips brushing against the cups brim as he thought of the best way to put the conflicting emotions in his head into words. Something clicked somewhere and a light bubl went off.

"He's just a friend…"

"A friend like Kyouya?"

"No…A hot chocolate friend…But let's go see Kyouya…"

* * *

**OMG! DRAMA, if I do say so myself. Anyone enjoy my little double!usage of Eclair? I had fun with it! Originally, I just screwed up and only realized it when jumping back to present (I have no patcience for revising) and slipped that in. Rather effective, if I do say so myself.**

**Anyway...Like? Hate? Love? Want-to-throw-up-every-other-sentance? Drop a review, please. They make up for my horrible love life.**


	8. Chapter Seven

**OH GOOD GOD!! Look! An update!!!**

Chapter Seven

Haruhi twirled the long phone cord around two of her fingers and allowed a small smile to ghost over her features. Pressing the receiver into the crook between cheek and shoulder, the commoner's hands were free to scratch several digits and names into the top most piece of a post-it. "Okay, so you can come down here in three hours?"

"Of course, Haruhi-chan," came the reply, a smile evident in the man on the other line's tone. "But I have to go now—my father's coming in thirty minutes for a presentation on the school's literary percentage."

"Okay—Bye, Tamaki."

"Bye, Haruhi. I love you, too."

"I didn't say that I love you, yet," she said, tone quietly expecting a sweet and short explanation.

"I know. But I can tell you do."

There was a click and the line went dead and Haruhi stood up from the front desk she had perched herself on, gazing at the scrap of paper she had taken notes on from the conversation. The time her fiancée would be arriving to give his statement; the time and day Tamaki had approximated he'd met the Hitachiin and the name of the coffee shop the two had gone to.

The lawyer sighed and rubbed her cheeks before reentering the interrogation room. The flush just wouldn't go down and, ruefully, the brunette decided to wait for a few more second. She was just about to turn around and perhaps grab a cup of coffee from the workstation when she spotted…

"Haninozuka-senpai?" she asked, blinking in surprise at the shorter police officer. The blond smiled and her and dusted off his hands as his partner—Morinozuka, Haruhi reminded herself—returned from locking a few perpetrators in another room.

"Haru-chan!" He bubbled excitedly, dropping his tough-guy pretenses in the company of a fellow follower of the law. "What are you doing here? What case?"

"The Ootori-Hitachiin case," she told him.

"Ootori…Kyouya? He's here? Ohh! What did he do?" A worried expression replaced his happy-go-lucky grin.

"We can't prove anything yet, but…have you been down to the morgue? That poor boy…" she extended a hand that held a glazed doughnut towards the shorter cop, knowing that this should at least buck up his mood.

"No. We haven't." came the deep response of Morinozuka as his partner nibbled thoughtfully on the confection and pouted. "We just got off a three day case."

"Yes! Kasanoda and Kuze!! They went to school with us, too, right? Anyway, they were embezzling millions through threatening Kuze's sports opponents. You remember how scary Ritsu-san was, right? He's still scary!!"

Haruhi smiled and picked up her coffee. "Well, I'm glad that you're case was closed. I'll see you around?"

"Defiantly, Haru-chan! But right now, we have to go bust a drug ring that we think is tied to a couple hits."

"Okay," the commoner said, reaching the door of her interrogation room and glancing over her shoulder. "Goodbye, then."

Their response was lost as the door clicked shut and Haruhi stared at the man who still sat in much the same space as he had twenty minutes ago. Kyouya flashed her a pleasant smile and swung his feet off of the table as she sat down. "More questions?"

"Yes."

"Tamaki confirm it?"

She grudgingly nodded, not trusting her mouth to communicate her masked feelings. Kyouya seemed pleased with this, and nodded slightly. Indeed, a great deal of their conversation seemed to be compiled of nods and smirks, and Haruhi was getting sick of it. She wanted more answers.

"You said that Kaoru came to visit you after he was attacked. What happened then?"

"We broke up."

"You…you what?!"

"We broke up," Kyouya supplied. "I told him that I did not want a romantic relationship, and that this…thing we had should be centered around sex. That way, he could be safer in his work place—you know, do his business without the fear of abuse or attacks."

--

---

--

Kyouya was furious. He was actually far beyond furious, but that was the best adjective to describe what he was. There was no way—no way in hell that the maniac that had done this to the teenager in front of him would ever be allowed to walk nor wake up, unless he was six feet under and screaming for help that would never come. His feet traveled the expanse of the hospital closet's tiled floor with renewed vigor as images of what he could be doing to the attacker flashed through his mind, hands unfurling and clenching with thoughts of where he would hit that man if he ever saw him again.

The twins watched his wearily, Hikaru dabbing one of the many cuts and scratches on Kaoru's knees with an iodine wipe while the younger did his best to keep gauze clutched to his lip, on which the split had reopened and started to bleed again, and also keep a travel first aid ice pack pressed to the goose egg that was rapidly forming on his forehead. The two had made it to the hospital entrance with record time, the elder more than half carrying the younger by that time. One could call it a stroke of luck that the first person they had met (or rather, run into) was none other than the tall brunette owner of the place, who had taken one look at the pair and rushed them both to this closet. If this wasn't unorthodox, than there was nothing that was.

Kaoru's eyes spun for the third time that evening, his body resisting passing out from the mixture of head trauma and fumes from the iodine. "Can't I have anything stronger than Tylenol?" he asked in a woozy voice.

Kyouya stopped pacing and shook his head gravely. "I can't get you anything stronger without actually making you my patient."

"Than how'd you manage to get him fucking Xanax?!" Hikaru demanded, his tone dripping with distaste and contempt. "That's a hell of a lot stronger than those baby painkillers you gave my brother."

What little light there was in the room flashed off of the Ootori's glasses and he directed a glare towards the unbruised and angry looking Hitachiin as he folded both arms securely across his chest. "If you must know, that wasn't me pulling strings. It was a simple slip up. The nursing staff worked deranged hours, and when one mixed up the orders of a man who had already died and one that was living, the medicine would have simply gone to waste. Why let it be thrown away when the order could very easily be…re-written."

Amber eyes gawked at him. "I never pegged you for a trafficker."

"I'm not—that was a one time thing, and I don't see how giving away will harm anyone."

"Well, it obviously did enough damage, didn't it—"

"Will you two shut up," Kaoru begged, biting his tongue as pain surged through his brain and white and black threatened his vision from either side. "Please. It's hard enough not screaming as it is, and with you two doing it, this whole thing is doubly worse." It was enough to silence both the standing figures for a split second, the small lamp above them swinging back and forth the slightest bit, and casting elaborate and distinctively eerie shadows over all their faces, but soon enough the silence was broken.

"I don't see how you can stand him," Hikaru snarled, baring his teeth in the iridescent light and snapping his eyes towards Kyouya with distaste. "He sounds, dresses and even smells just like the rest of_** them**_—and I thought we hated _**them**_ together."

"He's—he's not like them…He's different! I swear it. Hikaru, I thought you said you liked him!" Kaoru's tone was mournful and demeaning; it echoed off the walls in a childish and whining quality that would make many nannies scream if employed often. "You…you said that he wasn't all that bad."

"That was before this."

"There's nothing that Kyouya could have done about this, Hikaru. Nothing you could either, if I recall—stop trying to pin the god dammed blame on someone who's trying to help me."

Hikaru flinched. It should have been "_us_", not _me_…But it wasn't us… He turned his eyes away, glaring at a chink in the tile that bore no face to torment him with conflicting emotions and employing wants. Teeth gnashed relentlessly at his lower lip and moisture that the elder Hitachiin refused to attribute to tears welled in the corners of his eyes. Willing his voice not to split and betray feelings that should have been hidden, he opened his mouth. "I'm not—but I still don't like him. Why the fucking hell do you two stand to be happy when everything is so shitty around you?"

There was silence. Kaoru didn't have an answer that was impartial and wouldn't hurt his brother anymore than the other already was—in fact, the only one that floated to mind was the simplest and saddest one—_because, after all this, I deserve it._ And Kyouya had no plans to take part in the minor, brotherly spat that was taking place before him, content to watch as conflicting thoughts raced each other around the inner crevasse of his mind like dogs at a horse race—completely out of place.

The quiet stretched on, even as someone rattled the door knob outside of the closet in a vain attempt to be granted access. Even as the older of the twin's breathing became uneven and ragged with raw and unrestrained emotion and hurt. And even as the ice pack that was pressed to the younger twin's head gradually became room temperature, no one spoke.

And then…

"Kaoru, I don't think I should see you anymore."

He jerked upright, dropping the bloodstained gauze and flicking amber eyes towards his lover. "Excuse me?" His mouth was parted in dry apprehension. Had he really heard the brunette man clearly?

This had also attracted the undivided attention of Hikaru, whose eyes were narrowed and cheeks flushed, but gaze ferocious. Any weaker man would have quailed under the stare, but Kyouya—set in his pathway—did not even spare it a second look.

"I don't think it wise for us to see each other anymore," he repeated, before elaborating in that same dead tone he'd often used for business meetings. "As lovers. Customer and host is a completely different matter, however, and one much less…critical…"

--

---

--

"Hold on a second," Haruhi interrupted blandly. "I thought that you said you loved him. There's no reason for you to go back on your word unless…" her gaze darkened. "Are you lying to me again, Ootori?"

A single hand was prostrated forward in a sign of submission and resignation. "If I were you, I'd think more carefully before you insult me. Might as well knock on wood, Haruhi. If you keep thinking that I'm lying, I might just be tempted to do it some more—but as it was; I am not lying about what I said to him."

She didn't believe him, but couldn't really voice her opinion as an impartial third party. She did nothing but look down and demand, "Continue."

"Alright, then don't interrupt."

--

---

--

His lower lip quivered and eyes watered, weather from the throbbing pain that began to thump in his head. "You're…you're dumping me?"

"Of a sorts," Kyouya offered, his voice one tone and imperative—a great mask. "I'm not familiar with the etiquette of your crowd, but I'm not sure if we were ever close enough to be considered 'dating'. Wouldn't you say?"

Hikaru looked like he wanted to hit him, and Kaoru looked ready to vomit.

"How…how the hell do you get off on doing that, you sick freak!" Hikaru yelled dramatically, spit flying and hair that seemed to stand on end with pure angered energy. "You barge in here and make yourself comfortable, and then you just up and fucking leave?!? Just who do you think you are, Ootori!! You're not that fucking special." He started forward, as if to hit the man, but a dripping and possessive hand found its way to fist in his tee-shirted chest. Glancing down, all attention was diverted to the red headed Hitachiin twin, whose head was bowed in general defeat and perhaps depression.

"So…so you don't want me?"

"More of the baggage, Kaoru," Kyouya elaborated. "You come with a lot of dead weight—your brother, for one," Hikaru was motioned to, "Is only one of the problems. Under any other circumstances and _backgrounds_, things would have been different. But…" he left the sentence hanging.

A hitched breath was drawn, one that seemed to rattle in his lungs, and tears flew with lightning speed towards his eyes, down his cheeks and gathered under his chin to drip mercilessly on the floor. "You…you don't mean that," he managed to force out, attempting to stand, and using Hikaru's arm to try again when he failed the first time. "You…you can't mean that, Kyouya…I thought—you said that you wouldn't leave me."

"Kaoru, hookers are rented items, and the last time that I checked, it's rather hard to buy one out of the depression, let alone nurse them back." His tone was not snide, simply matter of fact, and both twins knew what he was saying to be true, although they did not want to admit it. "But, as you pointed out, I did promise that I wouldn't leave you. Do you remember what else I said when I told you that?"

His lower lip trembled as amber eyes darted left and right, trying to remember. When Kaoru finally did speak, all he could muster was a single word. "No."

"What's your fucking point, Ootori?!" Hikaru demanded, his voice growing in volume. "Why don't you just stay the hell away from us, huh?! We would have been just fine without you—better, even! Fuck you!!! You slimy bastard! Why did you barge into our world just to fucking hurt us!?!" Rage was visibly in the way hands trembled to clench at the fabric of his baggy sweatshirt, gripping and pulling shamelessly in an attempt to rid himself of some burning affliction.

"If you remembered," Kyouya continued calmly, eying Hikaru with apprehension. "I told you two things that night, and I don't blame you for falling asleep as I told you. I said 'I'll never leave you, you know that? If anything, I will help you get out so that we can both leave'." Silence. "Does that strike a cord, then?"

Kaoru refused to look at him, opting for the floor as he began moving towards the door. He paused a foot from his(…ex…?)lover, glancing at him from under the fringe of his hair with watery and somewhat defiant eyes. "No, they don't. And if that is what you said, then I don't see how breaking my h-heart is going to help." His voice peaked and broke with tension before the red head fell silent. He did not move, nor speak, and all that was heard in the small room was the outside commotion of the hospital outside and the elder of the twins stressed breathing.

There was a sort of sad smile offered and Kyouya's hand twitched as if to reach out and brush the hair from the boy's face. But both palms remained firmly by his side, offering no comfort to the younger. It was a pitiful scene. "You'll see," he said, if only to break the silence. And with that, he left the closet, and two red headed teens—one crying and he other standing like a statue, if only rock should shake with anger.

--

---

--

Kyouya took off his glasses and polished them on the fabric of his shirt, straightening his mouth into a thin and straight line. He looked unwilling to continue, but forced himself to anyway. "I…I didn't want to," he told her. "It was something I had been thinking about for a long time before, but I never really wanted to."

"Your intentions were to simplify your relationship with him so as to cause no need for jealousy?" she asked, suppressing the mothering sensation that spread through her at the thought of the selfless act. Perhaps…perhaps he was not a murderer, but a simple emotionless man. "That's…valiant. But you continued to see him?"

"Generally, yes, but it was…awkward, to say the least. I enjoyed his company before things became tense and…" Kyouya's eyes seemed to glaze over as he suddenly thought of something. In a much different voice, once laced with about as much curiosity as Anthony Hopkins portrayed as Hannibal Lector, asked, "How did he die?"

Die? Why would he want to know that? Haruhi shuffled through the papers, searching for the medical examiner's report on the body, extracting the sheet of paper with little ease. "He was strangled."

"Strangled, eh…How plain…" She did not entirely understand what Kyouya meant by plain, and couldn't really ask. She wasn't given the opportunity as the brunette kept talking. "With what?"

"That's sick, Ootori!" Haruhi accused, her temper flaring violently and eyes flashing. "Why the hell do you want to know?!"

Kyouya shrugged. "No reason…Just curious…"

There was silence. One party was waiting for the other to continue with the story, and the other waiting for the other to buckle and give over the information that he had asked for. Even from the other side of the extremely thick interrogation room, the screams of a detoxing baby and her mother could be heard before the two were too far away from the section of the building they had started in, and even then, the buzz of the copy machine and the ringing of the phones seemed to echo and bounce off the wall with renewed vigor that made the sounds ten times louder than originally.

"With panty hoes."

"See, that wasn't that hard."

"Shut up…Continue with the story."

"I'll never be able to continue if I shut up."

Haruhi glared and Kyouya pushed his glasses up his nose, smiling.

--

---

--

Hikaru could barely keep up with his brother as Kaoru ran. Well, he hobbled, more accurately. Together, their feet pounded against somewhat frosted street sidewalk, slipping once or twice, but never ceasing in their relentless trek. Hikaru knew, for a fact, that his own breath was twisting upwards in long tendrils of stream, and he could see Kaoru's streaming into his face, and the audible sound of sobs reached him through clenched teeth.

"Kaoru!" He called. "Kaoru, wait up!" He received no answer and, quickening his pace, Hikaru's feet met a patch of particularly icy patch of sidewalk and scrambled out from under him. The red head landed partially in the gutter and his lower half splayed across the somewhat deserted backstreet of the Ootori hospital placement. He gasped before the pain hit like a title wave. "Goddammit!! Kaoru!!"

But the younger red head was gone, still running and oblivious to his brother's cry, only accompanying it with his own pained cry, but this one more of a scream. He screamed as he rounded the corner, and slipped himself, only to get up and continue to limp as he cried.

Hikaru sat up in the gutter, feeling his heart plummeting with every step Kaoru took away from him. He wanted to kill Kyouya—the heartless bastard! Who did he think he was, toying with their emotions? Power wasn't everything! Hikaru had known whores that had killed their lovers for getting over controlling in bed and other places, but somehow…he didn't think that Kaoru had that in him.

He tried to stand, but couldn't seem to make his legs work, and when they finally lifted himself off of the cement, it was to only crumple back as his left ankle—the one he had slipped on in the beginning—crumpled and sent him sprawling again. But Hikaru didn't feel the pain. Somehow, the only pain he felt at the moment was the powerful, heavy and hot pain and sadness that pounded in the entirety of his body. It felt like heart break.

--

---

--

When Hikaru arrived at his home later, his ankle in a makeshift cast from the free clinic, the whole house was dark and there was no sound other than the rhythmic thump-thump coming from his parent's bedroom. His mother wasn't home, either. Trying his best to ignore it, he closed the door with a quiet click, and slipped through the hallway like the shadows that engulfed it. His bedroom, however, was past his parents, but the door was thankfully closed.

Kaoru would be there. He had to be. Hikaru had gone to his work first, and he wasn't there, so home was the only reasonable answer. He had to be there. Hikaru could comfort him there.

He placed both hands on the wood of the door, searching as if he could feel his brother's presence from the other side before he pushed the thin barrier open. At first, he couldn't see anything—the lack of light seemed to make everything blur together, but after a few seconds of just standing there, he could clearly make out a lump curled in the material of the dirty, rumpled be cloths. It was Kaoru. He was there.

Hikaru breathed a sigh of relief. At least he was safe.

Crossing the bedroom—tripping over various piles of cloths, magazines and empty soda cans as he went—the elder of the Hitachiin twins perched himself on the edge of the bed carefully, trying his best not to disturb the younger, who for appearances sake, seemed to be sleeping. However, the hitched and somewhat uneven nature of his breathing lead Hikaru to argue that Kaoru was not sleeping, and thus deem it appropriate to run his fingers through his twins hair.

"Kaoru?"

There was no answer but the minor shift under the blankets. Hikaru allowed his hand to move from the reddish locks down to the shoulder, tightening to assure the other that he wasn't going anywhere.

"Kaoru, please?"

"Please what?" He sounded as if he had a bad head cold that had his nose congested and didn't even bother to turn over and show the puffy red eyes that seemed to voice their existence in his demeanor.

"Talk to me," Hikaru practically begged, his hand withdrawing from the other and hanging it, suspended in the air. "Please…I know you cared for that dick before and I know that it hurts because—" _I feel like I'm losing you _"—we're loosing mom and dad, and the only difference is the rate at which we're…"

Kaoru sat up, his back to his twin, and there were several rattling breaths in which the elder of the twins knew for certain that something was wrong with the other. "He…he called me before you got home."

"What, who? Your boss?"

"Kyouya."

Amber eyes narrowed dangerously and his voice drowned the other in anger. "What did he want?"

A sniffle, and then Kaoru finally faced his brother, eyes red, face ruddy and tear trails running freely down his face. And smiling. "He says he wants to help."

**Tada!! This took a different turn than I last expected--I wanted to play out these event sin further detail, but real authors shoot for shortness, not long. So, I hope that the story will still be as long as I wanted to and have the same events, but perhaps in fewer chapters. Anyway, enjoy! Drop reviews! Ect...**


End file.
